i’m a procrastinator…..not like, ‘oh yeah, i always late til the last minute to do something.’ I’m a chronic procrastinor. It comes into play in all facets of life…meeting deadlines, being on time, returning calls….blogging. I guess you could say i work well under pressure, but most people don’t believe i have the genes that cause a person stress, because it seems that i don’t care about things. There is one thing that completely stresses me out though, and that’s big decisions that actually involve commitment. I didn’t apply to college until March of my senior year, I switched majors five times in three years at Appalachian, I am terrible at establishing relationships. I also have a problem with rambling, but hang with me, this all has a point. I’ve though a lot about life lately, and especially this last year. All around me at the school I taught at, I saw people who had grown up, lived, and now worked in the same community their whole life. I am in no way saying this is a negative thing, but I was becoming extremely restless, and had decided in college, as well as felt God calling me to something else, for at least a little while. I ended a relationship in college, because I saw that, if I stayed in it, I would be living in the same community for the rest of my life. Then one day, I woke up an realized that’s what I was doing anyways. I had felt God calling me to do something overseas, but I kept putting it off for one more year. I realized, if I didn’t leave now, I never would. I had been in contact with TeachOverseas, and had actually signed a contract with them, to teach this year in Eastern Europe, but the closer it got, I felt this wasn’t where I needed to be. (I was also feeling burnt out on teaching in general.) When I found out about the World Race, it seemed to be exactly what I needed, to drop everything, and just go and be God’s hands and feet, all over the world. Commitment issues came into play again however, and I questioned my ability to handle a year of something like this, (especially with it being my first time overseas.) So I switched to the shorter trip that was only supposed to last about 5 months. To be honest, when I found out it was focused on human trafficking I almost dropped out. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, and felt like there were already other big problems in the world that I had had a passion for (world hunger, genocide, education initiatives as a way to end long-term global poverty.) I saw trafficking as another issue, that I nor a lot of other folks knew about….therefore it didn’t really matter as much. Yes, I feel terrible about feeling that way now. I did some research on human trafficking…looking up statistics, interviews, psa’s, etc. God spoke to me through this, and said something to the effect of , “Now you know about the issue, now you know what effects it’s having on millions of people’s lives, and now that you know, you’re responsible for doing something about it.”…..And that’s what happened, now that I knew, it was impossible to ignore. I still tried to make excuses, but for each one God had an answer, and so two weeks before school started, I resigned, and committed to the World Race, and now here I am preparing, partly terrified, because it’s an amazing committment, and because of the unknown, but also excited, because it’s an amazing opportunity, to work with some amazing God loving people, to bring light into some of the darkest places in the world, and through God’s hand, set captives free, share the love of Christ…..and be the beginning of the end of human trafficking.
