When I was about 14, I took a powerpoint class, and our assignment was to make a slide of everyone in the class including their career goal and an interesting fact about ourselves. When I was asked, I said that my career goal was to be a missionary and my interesting fact was that I wanted to adopt 42 children over my lifetime. I am not sure why I said 42, but when I said that I felt surety in my answer. Soon after that I even named and mapped out the rooms of my first 12 children! At this time in my life, I knew that God was calling me into mission work. Living in a hut, serving Christ in another land, fascinated me. From the moment I first heard about Amy Carmichael in the 3rd grade, she was my role model; she was the topic of many of my reports and projects for school. I loved how God had used something she hated about herself, her brown eyes, to rescue girls in India and, ultimately, lead them to Him.
I have always known God was calling me to be a missionary, and in ninth grade, I learned that I did not have to go overseas to be one. During high school, I went from wanting to be an author of teen and preteen books, to wanting to be a director of a girls’ camp, to wanting to become a fashion designer and be a missionary in Hollywood. Even though I still have those dreams and am actively pursuing them, God has also given me the desire to be a missionary in another country. This past year, God has taken me from desperately desiring an amazing relationship with Him to being fully surrendered to His will for my life, holding nothing back. He has my whole heart and my life is not my own. My soul’s purpose on this earth is to bring His name glory. I have my class on Sunday to thank for this change in me. As a class, we have been reading through some books that have really challenged me and somewhat changed the way I view Christ and some of His teachings. This change has prompted me to really examine my life and see if He truly is my number one priority, not just something I add on at the beginning or end of each day.
When I heard that our class had the opportunity to go on this mission trip, I was ecstatic because I had been wanting to go on another one since my first mission trip to Belize in 2008. This trip to the Dominican is an answer to prayer; I believe that this is God’s way of bringing me back to a dream that I once held but pushed aside in the business of life. As I look back on my life, I am noticing that conversations, experiences, and desires have been leading up to this moment in my life. I truly believe that God has been preparing me for this trip, and that He will use this trip to prepare me for future ventures. I am excited to be a part of God’s plan to love these children!
John 14:12-13 (New International Version):
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.”
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