how in the world did i end up here?

See, I was the last one to join this crazy team,
the last one to say “yeah, I think that’s where God wants me”, the last
one to pull out of myself long enough to see what God is doing in India
and how much He desires me to be there, us to be there.

So how did I end up here?  It’s kind of a long story, a journey that I’d rather take you on by pointing you to my blog
and letting you read for yourselves…but since I know most of you
don’t want to read five years’ worth of archived blogs, and since all of
this story isn’t contained there yet, let me break it down for you.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. I went to the Middle East this spring on a
“vision trip” of sorts, to see if I could live and work there full
time…and then this little revolution that you may have heard about on
CNN started, and became not-so-little, and became not-so-contained in
any one middle eastern country, and began to affect daily life in the
place where I was, so the people I was there with kicked me out. They
said it was unstable and that I, being a short-termer, shouldn’t be
there. That broke my heart – I was just starting to learn the language,
to embrace the culture, to love the people…and now they were telling
me to leave. So I left. I went to Egypt and wandered around for a month
(literally – I went up and down Egypt, looking for something to do and
nothing seemed to fit). Meanwhile, most of my contacts in the other
country had also been asked to leave and had started establishing
ministry somewhere else. I came back to the US, still thinking I would
be back in the Middle East by this fall or next spring (at the latest),
and God began to speak to me that maybe this wasn’t the right time.
Maybe I needed a different season for a while. BUT what He didn’t tell
me to do was just sit around and wait for something “good” to pop up.
And guess what? That’s exactly what I did – I sat and waited. I didn’t
want to commit to something else, only to be told I couldn’t do it or
that it wasn’t a good idea right now.

So I waited. And I helped my sister with stuff for her wedding. And I
helped with VBS at my church. And I hung out with my family. And then,
after almost two months of being back in the US, I decided to go down to
World Race training camp and serve the new racers. I’d like to think I
made an impact on them, but that’s not what I want to tell you about.
God has this funny way of putting people in your path right when He
knows you’re going to need them, and He did this for me. Laura Meyers
was sitting behind me one day as we were waiting for racers to come in
to a worship or teaching session, and simply said “tell me your story.
Tell me who you are, why you’re here.” And, though I normally don’t
share so much with people I barely know, for some reason I felt
compelled to share. Everything. How I grew up in a Christian family, how
I’d come to know Christ at a very young age, how I’d experienced
rejection from various people/groups at different points in my life, how
I’d ended up on a Real Life trip with AIM the summer after my first
year of college (and subsequently another Real Life trip the next year
and the World Race a couple years later), how I’d come to experience
freedom while on the World Race and went home knowing I’d never be the
same, how I’d been working a nursing job in Colorado but couldn’t stand
feeling trapped in the american health-care system, and lastly how I’d
just been in the Middle East and had no clue where I was to go from
here. And you know what she said to me, toward the end of all this? “You should come to India with me. I could use a nurse on my team. Let me tell you about so-and-so…”

What? Seriously, God, did that just happen? I came to training camp to
serve others, not to have my life turned upside-down and be shown this
new opportunity. So like any good missionary, I told her I would pray
about it. And I did. And I told a couple close people
that I trusted that I was praying about it and asked for their prayers.
And I waited on God. I stayed with a friend in Atlanta the next week and
had a lot of free time, so God and I just had some conversations about
how I didn’t want to let the people down who lived in the Middle East
(since I had told them I was planning to come back…soon), we had
conversations about how I didn’t feel qualified since I’ve never worked
with human trafficking before, we had conversations about how I don’t
like to ask people for money, how I still don’t feel like that good of a
nurse…basically anything that I thought could get me out of saying
yes. And God started speaking back to me in funny ways (I actually wrote
a blog about this recently – how God used Dr. Seuss to get me to go to India – you should read it.), and how He basically wouldn’t give up on me.

So here I am. I said yes. (Actually, I said that God didn’t tell me no
and so I took that as a yes…and then I was told to pray about it some
more and God kept revealing to me all the things He had done to get me
to this point…so I said yes again.)

I still feel inadequate, unqualified, not ready. BUT God has gone before
our team. He’s been preparing a way for us even before the idea of
sending a group to India ever existed, and He’s also been preparing my
heart in ways I had never understood or realized. And so I’m ready to
begin this journey.

And He, who began this good work in me, will be faithful to complete it.