I know for some of you the anticipation has been building the past few days. Its been building for me, too!
Let me walk you through the process….
Back in October God began speaking to me about where He wants to take me next. At the time, I was really confused as to why He was already speaking about this, because I made a commitment to Adventures in Missions for six months (which ends Feb 9th) and anticipated staying on with them after that. I also was not even asking Him about what was next…it was just coming up, disturbing my present, and making me uncomfortable. I started seeing pictures of where He wants to take me.
I saw pitch black starkly contrasted by 2 or 3 white figures beside me. He is calling me back into deep darkness…into an unreached people group…into a place where people don’t know Him. There won’t be a lot of people around to help, but I won’t be alone.
Another image that began to flash in my mind is a picture of me. I see myself with a baby slung around my front, walking through a marketplace.
And then I began to hear them…. The first time I heard them it came through the mouth of an Australian woman speaking on trafficking at the Catalyst conference. She told the story of a trafficked woman she met who asked her, “If what you believe is really true, why didn’t you come sooner?” Why didn’t you come sooner? That phrase hit me like a ton of bricks and I couldn’t shake it. For the next week and a half that phrase was spoken to me 3 or 4 more times. “What do I do with this, Lord?”, I asked. He wouldn’t tell me, except to move quickly when He said move. A little more than a month passed before I first heard His whisper to “move”.
Its funny, because that first whisper came as I was trying to pursue something else. You see, I want to go back to school. That decision does have some fears and insecurities in it; like I said in my last blog, I want job security and to be able to provide for myself. But the decision to go back to school does have validity, which is what made the decision so hard. I want to get my masters in counseling to be able to counsel those who have come out of trafficking and who have grown up as orphans, and found a really good school that I think will help me be able to do that. I still really want to go there one day, but I know that I can’t right now, and that’s all I know. Anyway, while I was at said school, we went out to eat at a Thai restaurant, and another potential student asked me why I wouldn’t go to school there in the fall. Before I even realized it I said, “Well, I might move to Thailand or something.”
“What?!?!” In my spirit, I jumped back. I was completely shocked to hear those words come out of my mouth, and really hadn’t even entertained the possibility before. But something about it felt right…. I tucked this little outburst back in my heart, and tried to regain my composure and move on….
And I did move on, until the day I found out I won’t be working at Adventures in Missions after my commitment is up February 9th. After that day, it was like Thailand was everywhere. Everyone and everything was talking about it. I couldn’t hide (and believe me, I tried). And I still wanted to go to school. But the voice that has been louder than anyone else’s in this process is the voice of those I don’t yet know…. “Why didn’t you come sooner?“
So…if you haven’t guessed it yet…I’M HEADED TO THAILAND!!!!!!!! I say that even now in almost complete faith. I’ve never been there before. I don’t really know much about it. I don’t know the specifics of the where or who or what or how (these are all BIG things!). But I know I need to go.
I do have a plan. And I’m going to need you to help me get there.
More to come soon…..
