When you are preparing to leave the country and abandon your lifestyle… People tend to call a few things into question: your reasoning, your sanity, your motives, etc. I hear a lot of the same questions: Are you getting excited? Are you nervous? Are you really going to go? How did you find this? I could go on and on… No matter the initial question, it always comes down to the same final question:
Why???
The simple answer is … God told me to.
Work, service and serving others is where I feel most in my element and service in God’s name, well, you can’t beat that.
I guess my desire to serve goes all the way back to before I knew the Lord, but he put me in a preschool. I had observation hours for a class I just remember thinking “I’m doing it wrong, I should teach preschool.” Thankfully, I gave that one a second thought. But through that experience, I met several people that God put into my life like chess pieces. People who would love me, nurture me, challenge and introduce me to the Lord. Then, they walked with me through all the questions I had before I made my decision …and still today. I got asked to help in the church on a Wednesday … that’s how they got me in the door. Then, I kept coming back until eventually I figured I should probably come back on a Sunday.
After some time of that, I got the opportunity to go on my first mission trip. Joplin, MO, spring break 2012. At that time, God laid on my heart that I needed to be his hands and feet. I never felt more at home or like I had more of a purpose then while I was clearing debris and cutting trees with this wonderful community I had found in the BSU at Northwest. In that trip God taught me so much and I knew that serving him as a missionary was what I was supposed to do. Following that, there was another spring break trip, a summer spent as sports crusader, life group leading and loads of personal study.
One summer, my best friend at the time got to go to Africa. I couldn’t go but I helped the group prepare. They were learning and practicing oral story telling in order to bring bible stories to a group without a written language. I LOVED every minute of it and was sure I would go the following year… until the trip got canceled and Ebola happened…
When that fell through, I prayed. Where will I go? When will I go? Is this really what you want for me? And I had a list: China, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Bangladesh. I took that list, prayed over it and waited. Fast forward to January 2016 when the January 2017 routes were posted… and well, I think you can put together the rest.
Like I said… I’m going because God told me to and I have no doubt that they were his words. As for the rest of the questions… where God guides, God provides.
=)
