My journey into missions began in December 2010 when I traveled to Costa Rica on a quick-strike mission trip with a team from Celebration Church. Although the trip was just that, a quick-strike trip, leaving early Friday morning and returning home late Monday night, we were able to show the love of Christ to the locals through prayer walks, playing with the kids, and taking groceries to families in need. On our very first prayer walk, we prayed over a man named Walter, who decided it was time to turn his life around and entered a rehabilitation center. We also saw several people give their lives to the Lord! One afternoon, we walked to the local farmers market and asked the vendors to give food donations to support the feeding center. We were able to fill a whole shopping cart with food; God certainly does provide!
Our short time in Costa Rica was enough to see that the people there are filled with a joy that I don’t see much in my life. They exhibited a love for and reliance on God that is also hard to come by. We have things so “easy” in the United States because we can meet our every need at the drop of a hat. The living situations were incomprehensible in Costa Rica, but we’re never quite satisfied with what we have.
Shortly after returning home, I started feeling God stir my heart to do something MORE with my life. I began looking at different options, from taking more frequent mission’s trips to extended outreaches. I came across a program called Discipleship Training School (DTS) through Youth with a Mission (YWAM), which is an intense 5-month residential program aimed to equip Christians to serve as missionaries in a variety of fields by first helping you understand God more deeply, live more like Jesus and identify your unique gifts and purpose to use in the mission field. DTS has a 12-week classroom phase, followed by 10-weeks of international outreach. After wrestling with the idea for a few weeks, I felt like God was telling me to go.
In April 2011, I traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii where I lived on the YWAM base completing the lecture phase. My school and outreach team consisted of 4 other women:Hanna, Cydney, Bev, and Nicole. One of my fears going into YWAM was that I (25 at the time) would be one of the oldest in the school. However, God had his hand in the middle of things from the start, hand selecting each one of us for such a time as this. God surrounded me with a team of women who were around my age AND who I related to and learned from instantly. We quickly formed a little "family"; later we discovered that family was a word spoken over our school before any of us applied!
During lecture phase, we learned topics such as: how to hear God’s voice, how to develop and maintain spiritual disciplines, the spiritual authority we have been given and tools to use it, the Holy Spirit, worship and intercession, and revival and reformation. During this time, God not only starting stirring up things in my heart, but he also began tearing down walls that I knowing and unknowingly built up in my heart. God showed me who he really is, a God much different than who I thought he was. He is not at fault for the hurt, pain, or trials in my life. He was never absent during those times. In fact, he was with me every moment of every day, waiting for me to choose him above all else and to hand control over to him. God also showed me that my identity and worth come from him and him alone, not the world or from others. The enemy’s main tactic that keeps many of us from fulfilling God’s plan are LIES. Lies easily keep us off course, especially when we’re not confident of our identity in Christ and when we’re not surrounded by the right group of support. Lies kept me off course for quite a while. After I recognized the lies, I was able to renounce them and replace them with God’s truth.
Several weeks prior to our departure for the Philippines, I began questioning whether it was God’s will for me to go on outreach and whether I could do the things we’d be expected to do. It got to the point that I almost came home early. After spending several hours in the prayer room on base one night, asking for prayer from friends back home, and having my team pray for me, I woke up the next day with a different outlook. While in my heart I still didn’t want to go, I made a commitment to go and I didn’t want to let myself or the team down. I knew that by going on outreach I would learn to rely on God in a new way. 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 says it like this: “We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.”
Deciding to go on outreach forced me to rely solely on God, instead of myself, which I’ve often done. While on outreach, never once did God let me down. God surprised me every time I led a Bible study or spoke at a church by giving me just the right message for that particular group of people. He gave me boldness to pray for people and the faith to believe in his healing power. I love what the book, Radical, says about our weaknesses: “God delights in exalting our inability. He intentionally puts his people in situations where they come face to face with their need for him. In the process, he powerfully demonstrates his ability to provide everything his people need in ways they would never have mustered up or imagined. In the end, he makes much of his own name!”
Looking back, I now realize that this was a spiritual attack brought on by a lie that the enemy whispered in my ear; a lie that said I wasn’t qualified to fulfill the plans God had for me. I had two options: to believe the lie and give up, or replace the enemy’s lie with the truth that God is faithful to provide when he calls. Fortunately, I made the right decision, to trust fully and completely in a powerful God who provides in ways we could never imagine!
I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to spend two months in the Philippines allowing God to finish the work he started in my heart during lecture phase. He used our team in big ways to begin a revival in the slums of Smokey Mountain, to bring healing to the girls in the Nehemiah Houses, and freedom to those in Baguio City.
I completed my DTS in September 2011, returned home and went back to work within a few weeks. Upon completion of my DTS, if you would have asked me if I felt called to long-term missions, I would have quickly answered, "NO!!" I thought I was called to work in the business world, to make money to support myself and help support missionaries. I thought I would take occasional quick-strike mission trips, like the trip to Costa Rica. However, God definitely has much different plans for my life than what I've often pictured and planned for myself! He's calling me to SURRENDER those plans in exchange for his; to trust him and follow him no matter where he leads.
I recently read a quote that sums up my new view on life: "I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the LENGTH of it. I want to have lived the WIDTH of it as well!" For too long I've gone through the motions of life, without really experiencing life. God has been telling me that my expectations for life are about to be drastically changed.
In early October 2011, I learned about the World Race. Sure, it sounded like an amazingly, awesome experience, but I wasn't sure it was for me. But when I couldn't stop thinking about it, I figured it must be "a God-thing!" So, here I am, planning and preparing to embark on a new journey; a journey that will take me to Ireland, Romania, Moldova, Swaziland, Mozambique, Tanzania, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Haiti, and Dominican Republic. I plan to not only enjoy the LENGTH of the Race, but also the WIDTH of it!
