How I Was Called to the Mission Field

We were asked to write a blog about how we were called to this mission trip.  Here is my story…

 

I have always believed in God.  I grew up with parents who told me
that God created the universe, and that we would go to heaven when we
died to be with Him.  At the time my parents told me this, they weren’t
actually Christians themselves.  They both also believed in God and
heaven, but neither had a relationship with Him, or with our Savior
Jesus Christ.  I never really went to church, except on Christmas Eve
and Easter when the rest of the world “makes an appearance.”  The older
I got, the less I thought about God or heaven.  I remember hearing
something about how Jesus had died for us, but I never really
understood what that meant.  Why did He have to die for us?  Why was
that significant?

 

I was 23 years old, living in Hollywood, California.  Hollywood,
for anyone who has never been there, is actually one of the darkest
places I have ever lived.  God is not welcomed there.  I lived in a
rough part of town, surrounded by prostitutes and drug dealers.  It
wasn’t long before I entered into the kind of lifestyle I had not moved
to Hollywood to pursue.  I started spending time with people I
shouldn’t, doing things I shouldn’t have been doing.  In less than a
year, I was at such an all-time low in my life that there was nowhere
to go but up. 

 

God saved me one night.  I won’t go into detail, but I would have
died one night and I just started praying out of nowhere.  And He came
to me.  One encounter with God is all it takes to change your life
forever.  The next thing I knew, I was moving to Georgia to be with my
family and finish school.  I met my wonderful, amazing husband who is
one of the strongest Christian men I have ever known.  I was saved
within a single month of moving to Georgia.  Doing God’s work and
bringing glory to His good name is all my heart has desired to do ever
since.

 

Since the moment I gave my life to Him, I have had dreams of being
a missionary in second and third world countries.  My husband has had
similar dreams, but we’ve been so busy with finishing school and
starting out our lives together that it never seemed like the right
time.  But when a friend of ours went on the world race and came back
with the most amazing stories, we knew this was what we were supposed
to do.