We were asked to write a blog about how we were called to this mission trip. Here is my story…..
According to my parents, I started out my ministry at a very young age. Not realizing the effect I may have had,
I am told that with every new friend I made I would always sneak in the question, “Do you know the Lord?” I can
still remember friends I made on vacations or at McDonalds play places that heard the gospel from a seven year
old. My dad remembers a specific time when our family went to an airshow. Like most kids, I enjoyed playing with people’s dogs at the show. I was able to ask one particular dog owner if she knew the Lord. With her “yes”, I ran up to my dad and excitedly
told him, “DAD, if mom ever dies you can marry that lady, because she knows the Lord!” It was all with good intentions of course.
Hearing these stories at twenty-two has really shown me how God molds our gifts and passions from such a young age.
Sadly though, that boldness for Christ faded as I got older. In high school, church became an obligation to me.
Christianity became potlucks, Christmas pageants, pretty Easter dresses and a lot of “don’ts”. I was no longer offensive for
Christ as when I was a child. Instead I became really good at defending and arguing my faith, with the purpose of being right
instead of loving. It was all very discouraging.
According to my parents, I started out my ministry at a very young age. Not realizing the effect I may have had,
I am told that with every new friend I made I would always sneak in the question, “Do you know the Lord?” I can
still remember friends I made on vacations or at McDonalds play places that heard the gospel from a seven year
old. My dad remembers a specific time when our family went to an airshow. Like most kids, I enjoyed playing with people’s dogs at the show. I was able to ask one particular dog owner if she knew the Lord. With her “yes”, I ran up to my dad and excitedly
told him, “DAD, if mom ever dies you can marry that lady, because she knows the Lord!” It was all with good intentions of course.
Hearing these stories at twenty-two has really shown me how God molds our gifts and passions from such a young age.
Sadly though, that boldness for Christ faded as I got older. In high school, church became an obligation to me.
Christianity became potlucks, Christmas pageants, pretty Easter dresses and a lot of “don’ts”. I was no longer offensive for
Christ as when I was a child. Instead I became really good at defending and arguing my faith, with the purpose of being right
instead of loving. It was all very discouraging.
God never forgot how he created me though. The passionate seven year old came out again as I hit my college years.
College was the first time I experienced a church where people raised their hands. It was the first time I met people who
would take me aside and pray for me, and not just tell me they would pray for me later. It was the first time I met people
who were traveling overseas to tell people about Jesus and were heading to downtown Detroit to share the love. I was mingled with
different christian denominations which was unknown to me before college. No one was arguing about their denominational differences as much as they spent time serving with all their hearts.
Everything was very new and exciting to me; therefor, I began to read the bible differently than I had. I started to look not just at what God calls us NOT TO DO, but at what Jesus DID. I saw Jesus living for people. He lived not only for those “nice” Christians, but for the rejects. He spent most of his time with the poor, the prostitutes, the crippled, the blind, and the lepers. I began to lose the vision of Jesus as a stained glass window. I wanted to see what the bible said about him and not just the church. The bible has him on the streets, feeding people. The bible has him on the streets, talking to people who were not of his nationality. The Jesus in the bible spent most of his time outside of the temple walls. He taught me that faith in him isn’t a religion and church on Sundays but a way of life. Its not about being a “church goer” but a people lover and a witness of the Gospel. My life plans were ruined soon after this realization. No longer did I focus on who I was to marry after college so I could buy the perfect cute house, have four kids and send them to the best Sunday School program in town.
God changed my purpose so drastically. God opened up opportunities for me to go on a few trips to serve others. All within a few years I was able to help rebuild homes in Kentucky and Mississippi, go to an orphanage in Sierra Leone, and volunteer at a hospital in Guatemala. In the latest, God has grown my passion for other cultures. These passions became so intense I would literally cry out to God in prayer to where I felt my heart could just rip out of my chest for the the suffering people in Sierra Leone or the rejected homeless in Detroit. It is an undeniable movement in my life. This movement has truly made life more beautiful and exciting than trying to think of the best retirement plan. He has given me a true excitement to experience how other cultures worship differently to our ONE God and to bring hope to those in very desperate situations in life. Christ love remained in my heart from such a young age and is calling me to boldness again. I pray daily that this mission mind will remain in me here in Michigan or far overseas. For he calls us all to the mission field wherever there are people.
(Me and baby Ibraham In Sierra Leone. He was rejected to
a bush because of deformities.)
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20
