It all started about five years ago. I was sitting in service at my church back home, Bethlehem Assembly of God, and a missionary was sharing all that he was doing overseas. During that service God placed a dream in my heart that one day I would be a missionary, except I thought that day wouldn’t come until I was 50 years old, rich, and retired. Boy, was I wrong.
See, I’m a bit of a planner. As much as I love spontaneous adventures, I like having an idea of what I’m doing throughout the week and in life. I had this idea in my head that I would be a psychologist or have some career in that field and would be successful before I decided to leave everything and go live for God.
Last year, I came across the World Race through a mutual friend on Instagram and was intrigued at the idea of a 20 year old traveling the world living a life surrendered to the Lord. I didn’t know her personally, but I followed her journey and thought one day I would do that.
Fast forward to this year at the G12 Conference at my church here in Hawaii, Word of Life: the whole conference was amazing. I felt God’s presence in the arena and it reminded me that I needed to constantly humble myself before the Lord. The last day of the conference was the Youth and Young Adult Rally and that night changed my life. The worship band had just started playing and they called everyone to come up to the alter for praise and worship. This has always been my favorite part of service because I feel so close to God when my eyes are closed and I’m singing and its just me and him. The song “Spirit Break Out” was playing when all of a sudden God calling me to take a break from school next year and go and serve him. I know what you’re probably thinking because I was thinking it too: “Why would you take a gap year before your junior year in college?”, “why not wait until after you graduate?”. Well, when Jesus calls you gotta answer. Now it wasn’t that simple. As soon as that thought popped into my head I immediately shut it down because realistically it didn’t make sense. I had plans for my life- but that’s the thing they were my plans, not God’s plans.
After praise and worship ended, the pastor said the title for the message she was going to share, and guess what it was called- “A Change of Plans”. Everything she preached felt like God was speaking directly to me.
I prayed continuously in the weeks following the conference because I wanted God to give me a sign. I needed to know that He was really calling me to go into the missions field because as exciting as it sounded to me, I was terrified of actually doing it. I knew it was going to require complete surrender and life wouldn’t be about me anymore. I was like Gideon in the book of Judges, asking God for more signs even after He showed me one.
Sign #1. The message at the Youth and Young Adult rally, right after the dream was placed in my heart during praise and worship.
Sign #2. God would show me scripture calling me to go out into the nations and serve his people.
Sign #3. I asked God for clarity about one country he wants me to go to serve and Ecuador kept coming into my mind. So I asked God to give me a sign and a few days later while I watched the live stream of the Gap Year Routes, Ecuador was one of the countries. Tears flooded my eyes because there was no denying what God was calling me to do. I could keep asking for signs and He’d keep showing me them, so I finally took action, applied, and got accepted a week later.
In less than a year from now, September 2018, I will begin my 9 month adventure alongside some awesome people who also chose to accept the call and we will be serving in Guatemala, Cambodia, and Ecuador!!! I am super duper excited for what’s to come 😀
I would greatly appreciate your prayers as I prepare to embark on this adventure.
Thank you for reading this post, and for your support and prayers. I appreciate each and every one of you!
