When I started on the World Race I thought I was baby-stepping into the introductory chapter of the rest of my life, and the rest of my career as a journalist. Three years ago, when I was a senior in college and wondering what was to come in the rest of my life and what to give it to, I thought the Lord gave me a very specific calling concerning journalism, the nations and His people. The night I heard the Lord speak to my heart about this calling, I was totally excited and overwhelmed at the hugeness of the dream He’d given me: “katie, I want you to tell the American church through journalistm what I AM doing in and through my people around the world.”
As the Race has gone on, the Lord has been doing quite a bit of work in my heart concerning this.
First God began keeping me from stepping out on the Race into the role of journalist. I didn’t see the stories at first; I was uninspired at least until I got to Nicaragua. Then, I got pretty overwhelmed with some different things and never bothered to produce some videos I meant to make. I left them as hardly-begun projects in iMovie. The theme of being held back seemingly continued in Vietnam when I felt disconnected from the story of the church, and all I could do was very generalized (for safety reasons as well). In Cambodia, my heart broke for the orphans of Happy Tree, and I could easily take beautiful photos and videos of them. But I couldn’t explain through my video what their real stories were. How they got infected with HIV, what their hopeless futures looked like, etc etc.
When I got to Myanmar I shot tons of video footage and photos. I tried to record audio stories so I could tell people’s stories. But as I surveyed it all after leaving, i realized with chagrin that once again things have prevented me from being the journalist like I envisioned. My equipment wasn’t good enough to do what I really wanted to do, and I didn’t collect enough information. I’ve been happy to share some of the stories, but there are so many more…so many more I haven’t been able to produce….
Entering debrief I was ready for some Jesus-time, and I sure got it!
God showed me that I took the dream He gave me, and I turned into my identity. I so longed to be the Christian journalist pioneering around the world, telling the incredible stories of how God is working in His people all over this Earth. I so longed to learn more technical skills in multimedia to produce better-quality, professional-looking stories. I wished I had better equipment for recording material and producing it.
But I had come on the Race believing that was my purpose on it.
Nope.
God had other plans. He’s deconstructed me and turned my world inside out. He’s shown me that my real identity is as a bringer of His Kingdom, and that’s my purpose on this earth.
…To walk in His presence at all times and bring Him with me wherever I go.
…To fight against the chaos, darkness and barrenness of the world and bring God there to make it His Kingdom again–to bring Eden.
…To carry the light and hope of Christ, bearing His love as my banner and singing the anthem of his sacrifice.
And so whether or not that means being a journalist and telling the stories of the church, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that I’m bringing Kingdom, breathing the Spirit, carrying light, bearing his banner of love and singing the anthem of His sacrifice!
As I go in His presence, He’ll show me the way to go, the tasks to complete and the stories to tell (if any). I’m giving that dream back to Him. Maybe He’ll give it back to me, but maybe not. He’s birthing new passions in my heart as well, so only he knows what’ll happen. All I know now is who I am–my identity–now it’s up to Him to show me what my role in His Kingdom will look like.
