My grandmother’s 1954 Hausa bible. It seems fitting. 🙂
Actually, It seems strange to me…the idea that I was called to the mission field. What I mean is, who hasn’t been? I know a church that had a sign hanging on the inside of their front door that said “You Are Now Entering Your Mission Field”. If you love God, if you have given your life to God, you are called to the mission field, and it is everything outside your door.
Why was I called to the mission field? Because I gave my life to God. Because I am in love with God. Because doing God’s will and sharing His love is, for my spiritual life, as necessary as breathing is for my earthly life.
I actually didn’t plan on heading overseas. There are so many wonderful ministry opportunities that I have gotten to be involved with here in the states that I never felt as though I wanted to leave. I met so many people with passion for overseas work and I thought that was just excellent…for them. However, last spring I got to be part of a Bible study looking at what God is doing in the world. At the beginning I was staunchly, if not vehemently, defending the side that sends and supports. Which is fantastic. But suddenly I wanted to go. Because gradually I was experiencing a love and a sudden longing to go to these people who had never heard the Gospel, who were suffering more than we here can imagine, and to help them discover and know their heavenly Father.
I spent that summer in a repeated prayer that God would lead me to the right opportunity to pursue this longing. I had never been out of the country on a mission trip, and I didn’t know where to start. Still, it was one of the moments in my life where I had the most faith that I understood God’s will for me, and that He would provide. And He did. A few months later, through word of mouth, I heard about this mission.
And now God is sending me overseas.
