We were asked to write a blog about how we were called to this mission trip. Here is my story:
My mom read me tons of stories when I was young; novels, poems and tales of adventure. I have a faint memory of one story in which a woman devoted her life to serving God overseas. This woman had brown eyes, like me, but prayed that God would make them blue. I could definitely relate to that! As the only one with brown eyes in my family, I always wished they would just magically change to blue if I prayed hard enough. Or even hazel…that would at least be a step up from plain old brown. The woman in the story discovered, however, that God had given her brown eyes for a reason. As a missionary in India, blue eyes might have hindered the Indians’ acceptance of her. This, of course was a story about Amy Carmichael, and it was my first view of what missionary life was like. Secretly I prayed that God had a cool purpose for making my eyes brown too, and that someday I would need those dark eyes on an adventurous mission in the jungle of..well…wherever God sent me. Yes, that must be it.
Years later, in a huge stadium filled with other enthusiastic teenagers, I listened as a vonunteer with Global expeditions shared the importance of missions and God’s heart in bringing all peoples to Himself. Along with his message he showed a video clip that displayed youth lovingly serving people all over the world in Jesus’ name. my heart began to beat faster and I felt a certainty that this is what God was calling me to do. Since then I’ve kinda always felt like that was something I would be doing for the rest of my life.
God increased this desire in me during my last 2 years in High School, and, as I studied Spanish, my love for the hispanic people and their language grew. I had gone on a couple mission trips within the United States, and my senior year I got the opportunity to go to the Dominican Republic with the high school youth group. It was my first time outside of the United States and I loved all of it! – – being with the people, seeing the differences in cultures, playing with the beautiful Dominican children, helping my team with work projects, becoming unified as a team and as friends, practicing Spanish and, of course, the food was AMazing!!!
In 2006 I discovered the World Race while searching for a short term mission trip on the Adventures in Missions website. As I watched the promo video, a passion welled up in me that seemed to shout “this is what you were created to do!!” After praying about it, I felt like God was telling me to wait. So, in the mean time, I did some more traveling, moved to Costa Rica with a friend for 9 1/2 months, and then came to CA. It was here that God brought me back to the World Race website and I began feel an urgency to finish the application. In October I noticed the site’s ‘application-fee-waiver’ and thought, hey! what better time to send it in than now?! so I did, and, needless to say, HERE I AM!!!!!!!!! 😀
I am so humbled and honored that God would allow me to be a part of this awesome adventure with Him and I’m so excited to share this experience with my teammates, who, I can already tell, are AMAZING! God is so great and I can’t wait to see what He’s going to be doing in us and through us on this trip for His glory!!! Hallelujah!!!
