There are times my decision to leave everything and embark on this crazy 11 month journey seems completely unexpected. But then I remember that God has been preparing me for this my whole life.
It’s 1996 or 1997 and I am in the fourth grade. Missionaries come and speak to our church. One of them tells us that one of the most important things we can do is give all of ourselves to Jesus, to tell God that He can have our life and do whatever He wants with it. So that night, as I’m lying in bed, I tell God that my life, my future, it’s all His to do whatever He wants with. I am immediately terrified and regret my prayer because I’m certain that God is surely going to send me to Africa where I will most likely be eaten by a lion and never heard from again.
It’s 2000 or 2001. I’m in eighth grade, and somewhere over the past four years God has taken my prayer that I mostly prayed because I was told I was supposed to, and turned it into something I wanted to do. In a paper about my future plans I write that I want to be a missionary, maybe to a small country in Europe.
It’s the summer of 2001 and I’m 14 years old. A friend and I are playing talk show and videotaping ourselves. She asks me what I want to be when I grow up.
Me: I want to be a missionary.
Friend: Like, to India and stuff?
Me: Yeah.
It’s somewhere around my sophomore year of high school. My youth group is attending a conference. On the last night, a group of missionaries speak, and then they ask for anyone who feels called to missions to come to the stage. My heart feels like it is going to beat right out of my chest. I go up front and sign a card essentially saying yes, I feel called.
It’s my senior year of high school. I am confused, frustrated, and honestly, angry. There’s a missions magazine lying on my bedroom floor. It has a globe and a phone and says something to the effect of, “God is calling. Is it for you?” I shove it under some other papers so I don’t have to look at it, because as sure as I was before that I was supposed to be a missionary, I was now as equally sure that it wasn’t where God wanted me. It wasn’t that God had slammed any particular door shut, but I just knew I wasn’t supposed to be doing missions. Hence the confusion. Had I heard God’s voice at all? Had I heard wrong? Was I hearing wrong now? Am I completely messing things up?
So I go to the University of South Dakota and major in journalism, and add an international studies major just for fun.
I attend the Urbana conference and when we sing the worship songs in different languages I can’t help but think this is what church is supposed to sound like.
I take study trips and realize just how much I love other places.
I graduate and get a job working for a public radio station. And every single day I have to sit in my chair and hear stories of injustice from all over the world come across the airwaves knowing that the ONLY ONE who can make any of it right is Jesus Christ.
And through all of this, for all those years, I can’t help but think…
Why on earth would God put such a passion for the nations inside of me and not want me to use it?
Well, it turns out He does want me to use it. It turns out the “no” I thought I heard was really more of a “wait.”
In the spring of 2010 I “accidentally” came across the World Race website while searching for something else. I filed it away in the “might be cool to do a few years down the road” section of my brain.
In the spring of 2011 my workplace was downsizing. For two months I had no idea whether my job was safe or not. I began looking at backup plans including The World Race. I didn’t lose my job, but God got a hold of me and I couldn’t get the World Race out of my head. One night I was reading the blogs and I started to cry because I wanted to go so badly. So finally, after several months of prayer and seeking advice, here I am.
Can I just say, GOD IS SO FAITHFUL!
The past several years since graduating high school have been some of the strangest of my life. They’ve been filled with incredible high points and blessings, and also some of the hardest and most stressful moments I have ever experienced. And I don’t even pretend to know all of the reasons why God told me to wait on my missions dreams. But I do know that, as it turns out, God’s timing has been and is so much better than my own. Real shocker there. His plans were so much better than the plans I had made for myself.
See, if I had gone into missions right after high school, I don’t think I would have realized my love for journalism. And because my glorious Father knows me better than I know myself and because He gives the best gifts, He has allowed me to do the journalism thing for the past few years. And who knows, maybe I will be able to use those skills for Him!
All of those times I felt confused or like God was far away, He was right there. I am just completely blown away by His faithfulness! He wired me with a love for the nations for a reason, and He never abandoned me. Oh, He is so good! I’m not only going to India (where I wanted to go when I was 14), small countries in Europe (where I wanted to go in eighth grade), and Africa (where fourth grade me was terrified to go), but I’m going lots of other places as well.
I’m so excited to see God’s faithfulness over the next couple of years, and excited to see Him work in this next part. See, I need $15,500 to go on this trip. It’s a big amount of money, but I serve a big God. If you feel led to support me, please click on “support me” on the upper left hand side of this page for more information. There are multiple methods, but sending a check is one of the best ways because no processing fees are taken out. (Just make sure you mark that it's for me). I will be sending out a letter with more information soon!
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Please pray for my squad and I as we prepare for this journey.
Thank you and God Bless! He is so good!
