I remember when I first really became interested in the idea of being a missionary….it is kind of a strange story, to be fair, but the desire has stuck with me. I was about 15 and reading the book The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. If any of you have read this book, you are probably scratching your head and trying to figure out exactly how crazy I must be. For those of you who haven't, let me fill you in.
The Poisonwood Bible is about a family of missionaries in the 1950's that move to a small tribal village in the Congo to try and share the Gospel with the African people. This family of a mom, dad, and four daughters creates the stereoptypical "missionary" image: family leaves home, sets up camp in the middle of nowhere in a foreign land, and decides to settle in and talk about Jesus all the time and make all the village people become Christians . To make a long story short….they fail. Miserably. The whole family falls apart and falls away from their faith entirely.
And somehow, for some bizarre, backwards reason, this book served only to strengthen my faith and give me a heart and desire for foreign missions. All I can say is….the Lord works in mysterious ways. I distinctly remember thinking: "I could have nothing in the whole world and just be sitting in the dust in the middle of Africa, but if I know that I am living and loving unconditionally alongside Jesus, I will be happier than with anything else." I remember sharing this thought with my mom (although I don't know if she would remember it….she says I made proclamations like this all the time and that living with me was like living with a cartoon character 🙂 ), but nobody else. I was at that super sensitive, self-aware age where you so desperately want to be accepted by your peers that you keep these sorts of deep spiritual desires to yourself for fear of being picked on.
Of course, in our chaotic, distracting, human lives it is easy to lose sight of this sort of vision. I finished high school with the occasional (semi)rebellious stint and went off to college. In college, I did my share of partying and carrying on, and while I have grown out of that scene, I recognize that the Lord used these times to teach me a lot about who He calls me to be and what He is calling me to do. That….whisper, idea, crazy notion, the Holy Spirit's voice, whatever you want to call it…has just grown and gotten bigger and more real.
So God had used that strange book to plant a seed in my heart and it has continued to grow ever since. One song that I used to love and listen to all the time back then was One Pure and Holy Passion. This song, by Passion Worship Band, kind of embodied my desire to become a missionary in some form at some point in my life. It basically, in very simple and eloquent terms, is a prayer to my Father to give me a desire to do nothing but serve Him.
I originally went into nursing because I wanted to have a skill to take into the mission field. I was sitting at home in Lewisville, NC two weeks before my sophomore semester of college playing around on (what else?) facebook. I think this was shortly after facebook started allowing the posting and tagging of pictures, and when my brother officially began to call it "stalker.com". In nosing around, I came across pictures of a girl from my church who I had always known to be an incredibly kind, lovable, Godly woman named Brittaney Swift. In the pictures, she was wearing scrubs and holding a small child in a medical clinic in some third world country. In that moment, I finally heard, without question, my calling: to care for the sick, and use what I learn to care for the poorest of the poor.
I went bounding up the stairs and told my mother I had just made a life-changing decision. She sat and waited expectantly for my new crazy plan (like I said earlier….I tended to be a little over-the-top in my excitement and aspirations, many of which died in a matter of days), but as a nurse herself, was more than thrilled with this one. From that moment on, I have had no doubt that God set me on the path to become a nurse for His purpose, and I hope to get to use what I have learned on the World Race. One day, I hope to commit time, energy, prayer, money, and knowledge to a medical setting in an impoverished place, God-willing.
Until then, God has given me the Race! And although I have no idea what I will see, where exactly or who exactly I will serve, or where God will take my vision afterwards, I believe that He already knows ALL of those details, and I intend to walk into them with an open heart and mind for service. This year is going to be epic!
