If there’s one thing I don’t like doing, its waiting. Yet God is constantly allowing seasons of patience to refine me. The hardest one by far was waiting to be commissioned out onto the mission field. Finally, last year, when I thought my time had come, He said “no, beloved. Not yet.” and I was heart broken. But over this season of waiting God has been kind in lavishing a love for the mission field that is at my feet here and now in Lynchburg and Chesapeake. As opportunities to evangelize are gifted to me, I realize the calling of a missionary is not dependent on a plane ticket but on the availability of a heart that has a readied “yes” on its lips. I am finding that His no’s are in fact generous gifts in leading me on the paths of abundant life. My heart’s deepest longings are being fulfilled as I lace my feet with the readiness of the Gospel each morning and encounter Lynchburg, and they continue to be fulfilled as I strap a 60L pack on my back and leave America to trek to 11 of the most unreached people groups in the world with the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
As I ponder the reality of leaving America for a year I rejoice in the closed doors that brought me to a place I could have never in my wildest dreams envisioned for my life.
