I quit my job to go on a missions trip around the world. That’s not exactly a phrase you hear often. I get a lot of odd looks when I tell people that, and even though most of them are encouraging they’re still a little surprised. It might be hard to understand why someone would leave a stable job with a decent income to dedicate nearly a year to missionary work, so I’ll do what I can to share the path that brought me here.
My parents were full time missionaries for a while, and even while raising three boys found time to go on short-term trips with their school students. My parents never made a big deal about it, but we could see the photo albums and read the letters from their old missionary friends and we could certainly see the impact it had had on their walk with God. I was always just a little impressed by the dedication it would take to drop your comfortable life at home and go to a place where the people didn’t know Jesus with the sole goal of saving souls and changing lives. For me personally though, I never felt that I was called to the mission field.
In retrospect, that was probably more than a little foolish. I enjoy many things in life, but I have never felt more happy than when I was helping people. It didn’t matter how simple it was, I have always leapt at the opportunity. I especially love working with children – there’s nothing that brightens your day so much as making a little child smile. There are a lot of different career paths I could have chosen with that love, but missions never seemed like an option. Perhaps it was that I found enough opportunities to serve children in my church that I never felt the need to look elsewhere, but more likely I was just stone deaf to the needs of hurting children in other countries.
My other fascination in life is travel. You could say it’s because every house I’ve ever lived in has been within a hundred mile radius of Lincoln, Nebraska, but the truth is even if we’d moved about a bit more when I was growing up I think I’d still want to see everything. My most memorable summer vacation was the trip my family took to the Pacific Northwest – the memories of those two weeks remain fresh and exciting. I’ve made trips to Colorado or Kansas to visit family, and every once in a while I’ve gone to more distant states, but except for two days in Canada I’ve never been outside of the States. I’ve always been intensely curious to know what it’s like in the rest of the world, and to see all the beautiful places God has designed.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized God had given me this wanderlust for a reason – He wanted me out and about in the world for at least a little while doing His work. When I heard about the World Race it came at a time when I was ready to get out of Omaha and see what else the world had to offer, and the sudden realization came that God was really prompting me to “go into all the world and preach the good news” (Mark 16:15) in a very literal sense. Since applying for the Race I’ve seen His hand working in every area of my life and while it might have been crazy to contemplate a year ago I am now very excited about this opportunity to leave my old life behind and leap into the mission field headfirst.
There’s really no choice in life that more perfectly merges the desire to travel and the desire to help people than missions work, and I won’t be surprised if I come back from the Race ready to go on another trip.
