Please Meet Jessica!

I grew up in a big military family with 3 brothers and 2 sisters for a lot of my life (my parents had another son when I was about 20 and he is spoiled rotten ). Although we definitely didn’t move as much as most, it was our 6^th move to Colorado where we finally settled down for me to complete all of high school. It was a pretty normal, stable childhood. I honestly wouldn’t even really be able to say when I actually had a committed relationship with Jesus, but it was probably sometime around my teens.

I had spurts of loose rebellion in my teens that didn’t go very far due to my incredibly guilty conscience and my inability to keep a secret. The smallest things would absolutely eat me up on the inside, to the extent that I HAD to tell someone… ANYONE. I think that’s where a lot of my uncertainty of when my relationship with Jesus began comes from. Throughout my teen years I knew when my actions were right and when they were wrong to the core of my being. I spent a few nights sneaking out of my house or sneaking people in, but even that lasted only a few short months before I confessed in tears (unprompted by my parents, mind you) and promised them I would never do it again. 

During that same time frame I began to discover some of the things God had ingrained in my heart. I had a knack for finding people who were really hurting and needing to be loved. I always joked that most people brought home stray pets, but I brought home stray people (that hasn’t changed). I also loved adventure, but not adventure in the usual sense of hiking and traveling. I was always awestruck by books I would read or stories I would hear about people who had been utterly courageous in the most horrible of circumstances. Girls captured and forced to conform to a tribal life. Women working the underground railroad to smuggle out fleeing slaves. Ordinary housewives who would bake bread during a village raid knowing she had a family of five hidden away during World War II. One of the most impactful moments of my teen years was during a Voice of the Martyrs night that my youth group hosted. They had us walk through blacked out rooms with videos and stories of the persecuted church all over the walls. Stories of men and women giving their lives. A true, authentic love for Jesus. No one could fake it there. No one just “went to church”, because being part of the Church meant a target on your back. There were stories about kids, probably in there late teens or early twenties, visiting underground missionaries in China, smuggling in Bibles and almost getting caught while they were at it. I left that evening knowing that I could do that. Knowing that I NEEDED to do that. These people fascinated me (and they still do). I wanted to be just like them. There was only one problem: I was afraid of everything. Scratch that. I’m still pretty much afraid of everything.

Fear has been my biggest tormentor my entire life. It has caused me to run away from things I should have faced and stay places where I should have long left. I was often confused with this “calling” I felt was on my life to work with persecuted people groups. It’s something I wanted so badly – a calling I could feel in my bones – but even sharing the love of Jesus with a co-worker was daunting. I wanted to vomit going through TSA checkpoints at the airport. How could I ever share the love of God with people who not only don’t know God, but they may hate Him, and they may hate me as well? It’s pretty easy to say you’ll do anything for God when you’re sitting in a prayer meeting with a bunch of people who believe exactly what you believe. But what about in the real world? 

But somehow, in God’s perfect way, it’s happening. I can’t even really list all of the ways the Lord has used me in ways that should have been terrifying, but were at least manageable at the time. Situations where others would have said no, I’ve been given the grace, strength and courage to say yes. I have been able to sit and cry with prostitutes in Canada as they have poured out their lives and stories like I was a close friend. I flew to China by myself at 18 to meet up with an organization that ran summer camps for Chinese orphans and had to figure out how to get back home after being flown to the wrong airport (long story, pre-smart phone – it was an adventure). I have had dozens of people sleep on my couch and had people ask me to take care of their kids for a few days, a week or a month while I was trying to manage nursing school and working a job. And now I’m in Thailand working with the Free Burma Rangers, a group that trains people groups in high conflict zones like Burma, Iraq and Syria. 

Some days I have no idea why God picked me for this life and what things he’s going to throw my way when I head back to the USA in a month. It’s hard to understand why God takes our weakest areas and decides to make those the highlight of our ministry and the call He has for us. But it seems like those are the only areas I have been forced to come to Him, begging for strategy and wisdom and guidance. I guess Moses had a stutter, Abraham had his age and I have fear. But overwhelming that fear is the burning, tremendous weight and truth that when I became a Christian I was called to follow the example of a man who literally laid down His life in devastating suffering in order to bring reconciliation to a world that was falling apart without his sacrifice. So my story includes saying yes to things that freak me the heck out over and over and over again. Not just until I get married. Not just until I have kids. Not until I settle down (whatever that means), but recognizing that saying yes to Jesus means saying yes in every way He asks me to for the rest of my life. I’m thankful that He will never leave me in this journey and, come what may, I pray that I continue to be faithful to the life He has called me to lead.