When God first called me to the World Race over a year ago, I initially didn’t want to go. I felt there was too much at home
holding me back like my job, family, friends, and church. I would have to get rid of my car, my apartment and put everything
in storage. My husband was serving in Iraq and I thought I needed to be at home to support him. There just seemed too much to
give up to be worth traveling and ministering around the world. After all….there were many people in the US that I could serve
and minister too…right?
That’s what I kept saying to God when I heard His call to me to go to nations in 2006. I finally obeyed God and put my life in the
USA on hold for 11 months and followed God with all my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength.
I thought I was giving things up and sacrificing so much to follow God. From the outside looking in it may appear that way.
Instead I received 100 times more than I thought I was giving up.
This year I have been spiritually beaten and attacked, stripped away of things, and slept on the street. My heart has been broken
for the orphans and widows, the homeless, the sex trade girls, the spiritually lost, the sick and tormented, the HIV/AIDS adults
and children, the poor, the persecuted, the hopeless, the children. I felt like I was living in a National Geographic Magazine.
Ok, so those things do not sound very fun, but it is what came from those things that I received from. I saw the power we have
over the enemy, that I can live without many things I thought I needed. I saw smiles on orphans and widows faces when I visited
them. There is nothing in the world like a hug from an orphan that will bring tears to your eyes! I helped to build homes for
people who lost theirs, I was able to intercede and pray through the Red Light District in Bangkok for the sex trade girls, I saw
hundreds surrender and give their lives to Jesus, I saw the sick healed and many set free from demons. I saw AIDS patients that
felt hopeless to finding hope in Jesus, I saw the faces of the poor light up when they received a bed, or bundles of food and clothes.
I learned from the Christians persecuted in India and China that “for me to live is Christ but to die is gain”. I learned to have
childlike faith from the children all over the world and I discovered a love for children and teens I never thought I had.
So to me….I gained a lot more than I gave up. God has changed my heart! I now have new friends all over the world. I have a
passion more than ever to see the nations come to the saving grace of Jesus. I long for others to feel what I’ve experienced. I hope
that throughout this year, those reading my blogs where able to see through my eyes and God’s eyes of the world. I yearn for the
nations. God has grown me more spiritually this year than probably my whole life.
I am excited to get back to the United States again and be a wife, a daughter, a friend, and a church sister. I do not know where
God will lead me in my next page of life but I do know that I’ve given it to Him.
