Hey welcome to my blog! My name is Luke and I am glad you are here! So I just want to tell you my story and what to expect from my blog.
So this is my first time blogging or really writing anything so other people can read in and in the coming months I will be out in the field, so I am going to tell you right now, grammar is not my strong suit, but I will try my best.
So I am from a small town in Ohio called Pleasant Hill. Growing up I was well loved and happy for the most part. Early ages I was no stranger to mud and dirt, at the ages from 5-13 you could find me in two places in my room with lego’s or in the woods out back. When I was in second grade they told me I had ADHD, my self-esteem took a hard hit. I stopped trying to be as good as the other kids because I thought I could not be at there level. By Middle school I stopped doing my homework and was not so happy, I become pretty negative in my mind and never gave a second thought to the idea of God. School was a constant battle for me.
With my difficulties in school I would have to say that the day I graduated high school was one of the best days of my life, defiantly makes the list, I really had to work for that diploma. After I graduated I got a full-time job and started hanging around a bad influence. I became way to consumed by how my body looked and what people thought of me, my self-esteem was still shot from my school days so I was constantly trying to please people.
I didn’t want to waste my life doing nothing cool so I made it my new goal to get some kind of new job that was cool that people would like. So I quit my job and left for Hawaii and joined the crew of the Pride of America, a cruise ship that travel around the Hawaiian Islands. Sounds cool right? Not so much I lived on deck 2 in a room with two other guys that was the size of my bathroom at home, and worked 12 hours a day in a hot galley as a dishwasher. Working for money and the pro-suit of acceptance. A month and a half in I got sick and wanted to go home, I felt I could not get the acceptance I was really looking for here, so I jumped ship.
So mid March I walked into my back door of my house said what’s up to my parents as they looked like they had just seen a ghost (I did not tell them I was coming home). And I started my next step looking for a job. I did get one and yes it was as a dishwasher. I then tried to work out Luke’s next big life plan! I thought owning a business would be cool! So I started one! Was it successful? I guess not, I am not really sure what is going to happen to Thompson International, but the idea seemed so fun to me. Own my own business, quite my job, become someone everyone can put there stamp of approval on, you know the “American dream”. But something happened I never planed for, I went to a business conference to try and learn about what I was doing (I really have no idea, and here is the real secret I never really do). They had a Sunday morning church service, and it was one of those things where I am not really sure why I went, I just did.
That day I felt the Holy Spirit for the first time. It was great, but at first I did not even know what it was. I had to ask someone haha. But within the next year I changed in ways I never thought possible, little did I know God was shaping me. So I did quit the dishwasher gig and traded it for being a barista at a local coffee place. Every Wednesday this guy would come in, very friendly and chat with me and my coworkers (normally would order a large americano) I later found out he was a pastor at a local church and Wednesday he came in to work on his sermon. I later talked to him, he seemed pretty cool and we started to talk like old friends when he came in to the shop. I started to look forward to Wednesday mornings.
One day my new found pastor friend came into the shop and we had our normal jokes and banter, but then he asked me a question that would change the course of my life indefinitely. “Hey do you want to go on a mission trip?” Ummmm I don’t know but here is your americano. I knew I was a child of God, I knew he loved me, I thought I had some idea of what his plan was for me. But a mission trip? Not so much in my cards, but they might be in God’s. So I got all my shifts covered and said yes. Next thing I know I am in the back set of a truck with a bunch of people I don’t know, headed to Atlanta, Georgia.
That’s when my relationship with God got serious, like we got all kinds of facebook official after that. For the first time I felt I was walking with God, I could feel him with me and working in my life and see Him work though my fellow missionary’s. After that week in Atlanta I knew I had to do something more then just be a sender, I had to be a goer! So I started to seek God and run after him, chase with a passion. I felt God wanted me to do missions, so I started to look for my next mission trip, it felt like I would searching forever. It was not until I looked up the World Race, as I read and watched videos about it, I felt God move. This was it.
So here I am all signed up and doing my best to follow God’s plan and get what I need to be able to go. This is just the short version of my story but I feel it does the job. I hope though my stumble of words you got to know me a little better and got a feel for my love for my work.
