God called, I answered.
In January of 2019, I will be leaving the US to participate in the World Race, which is a mission trip that will take myself and a team to eleven countries (Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, and South Africa) in eleven months. Anyone that knows me well knows that this has been a dream of mine for quite some time, and I am thrilled to be able to say that I have been accepted.
I still remember the conversation where this dream was born – a conversation between myself and someone I had just met the week prior, who is now one of my dearest friends. As college freshmen do, we were talking about our majors, which inevitably leads to what can often be the worst question to ask a student: What do you want to do with that? I had my answer ready, but I had no idea just how crazy of a journey it would be taking me on in the years following. I was studying international business, with the intention of eventually working for a mission organization (Compassion International or WorldVision have always been my end goal). She asked if I had ever considered the World Race as an option. The second it was explained to me, I was hooked.
A lot can change in five years, and honestly, a lot has. I’ve graduated college, and will be graduating grad school in three months. I’ve lost some friends I thought would be around forever, but out of that some incredible new friendships have started. I left a church that I never dreamed I would leave until I moved away, but the church I ended up in has welcomed me in and grown my faith in ways I have never experienced before. I’ve traveled all over the world, for school and for missions, and had my eyes opened to cultures and needs that I never would have cared about had I not followed God’s call to step out of my comfort zone over and over again. A lot has changed. But a lot hasn’t. My end goals have always stayed the same, so here I am, five years later, in the beginning stages of my own departure.
I am excited, but I am also terrified.
I say that I’m terrified because I have no idea what to expect. All I know is that God is going to use this experience to rock my world in ways that I am not at all ready for, but in ways I know I need. I don’t know all of the details about what I will be doing on the trip, but I do know that in each country, my team will be partnering with an indigenous mission and helping them with the work that their ministry is involved in. This could take a wide variety of forms – from helping run VBS programs, to construction projects, to ministering to women recently rescued from sex trafficking. I’m terrified because I have never done anything like this, and there are so many unknowns, but I am ready to put all of that in God’s hands to do something that I know He is calling me into.
I say that I’m excited because, ever since my first short term mission trip to Mexico City in the summer of 2012, I have felt called to missions. During the week that I spent with the team at that orphanage, my life came into focus, and I started thinking about the steps I would need to take to make that calling a reality. After six years in college, three more short term mission trips, four internships at Christian ministries, and two years spent employed at a ministry that does exactly the kind of work I am interested in, I am finally ready to take the last step. This trip has been part of my plan almost since the beginning, and I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around the fact that it is now less than a year away.
Prayers would be greatly appreciated, both for the time leading up to my departure and the year I am gone. I am positive that I will not make it the full year without a team of supporters to encourage me along the way. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into, but I’m so excited to find out.
