March 12, 2017
It is hard for me to describe just how good God is, but for those of you who know Him, you have experienced that goodness firsthand and therefore understand my struggle in trying to relate it.
It’s best to give you a little bit of background. I know that the Lord has called me to be a missionary; when I was in high school He captured my heart and gave me a desire to serve Him with all that I am. That desire soon grew to a desire to serve as a full time missionary and the only thing that remained to be seen was where that service would take place. When I began Bible college a year and a half ago, I wanted to serve somewhere where they spoke English, such as England or Ireland, for a few years until I got married. At that point I wanted to settle down somewhere and raise my family while my husband continued to serve the Lord by pastoring a local church or something like that. My plan for my life and for my service unto the Lord truly was shaped and fashioned around the fears that I harbored in my heart. The things I didn’t want to let go of, the dreams that I didn’t want to surrender. My hopes for my future allowed me to stay “safe”, but then God began to call me deeper.
As God ministered to my heart and brought my fears to the surface in my first semester of Bible college, I was forced to deal with them and really decide if serving Him was what I wanted, because if it was, it meant that I had to be all in. No more picking and choosing and telling Him how I was going to follow Him. I had to really let Him lead if I was going to be obedient to all that He had for me. For anyone who has experienced the grace of God, you know that there is no alternative; in the light of all He has done for us and how much He loves us, we can’t help but surrender to Him.
And that’s what I did.
During this time He confirmed, without a doubt, His call upon my life and I began to seriously pray about where He was sending me. At first it was so subtle and so far from anything I had imagined for myself that I didn’t realize that God was answering my prayer.
“The Middle East.”
He was whispering
I told Him that He must be crazy, it just didn’t make any sense (and often times still doesn’t). I am a single, white girl who doesn’t know anything about Middle Eastern culture or language. How in the world would I be a missionary in the Middle East?
But as I continued to pray, He softened my heart to the possibility and my prayer changed to ask for confirmation beyond doubt that that really was (and is) where He is calling me. I know the cost. I know that being a Christian in many of these places is a death sentence and I am willing to pay that, but I want to be sure that it is His will rather than my own idea of Christian heroism or something weird like that. I wanted to be sure that I didn’t just get the Middle East into my head because I thought that missionaries who went to the “hard places” were more legitimate. And so He began to show me that it was His voice that whispered of these far off lands, it was His hand that planted these seeds of possibility, it was His heart that broke for the people of the Middle East and now caused my heart to break for them too.
I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would even visit the Middle East, let alone possibly live there, and I don’t really know in what way the Lord wants to use me, but I am willing, whatever it may be. For a year and a half now this has been gently guiding my plans for the future and I have been praying for and with the Christians and for the Muslims of the Middle East as well as for the Lord’s plan for my life. This past January I had the opportunity to meet a missionary serving in the region and I was invited to visit them and see what they do, how the Lord is using them, and if it is possibly something that the Lord has for me. I was ecstatic over the invitation and prayed that I might have an opportunity to visit them this summer, but I honestly didn’t see how I would be able to afford the trip.
I knew that God would take me there if He wanted to, so I surrendered it to Him and put it to the back of my mind.
As you all know, I am in Italy for my final semester of Bible college and I have some vague ideas about what to do after I graduate, but nothing concrete. I came into the semester really expecting the Lord to meet me and direct my steps into exactly what He has for me, whether it be pursuing my bachelor’s degree (in what, only He knows), going right into the mission field via an internship at a Calvary Bible college in New Zealand, or possibly something else. What I wasn’t expecting was for Him to do begin directing so soon.
My missionary friend in the Middle East reaffirmed her invitation to me and I began trying to plan a weekend visit, but I had little to no expectation of being able to go. I didn’t think any of the other students would want to go, I didn’t think I would be allowed to go alone, and I didn’t think I’d have the time, but praise God because He is doing something even greater than what I ever imagined! As I was planning and researching, I told one of the missionaries here in Italy that I wanted to go and she asked me to keep her posted on prices and flights because she would like to come with me. That was a huge encouragement because then I couldn’t be denied for going alone- God had provided a traveling companion!
My missionary friend, Savannah, who wanted to go with me talked to the pastor here in Italy to see if she and I would be allowed to go or if it was entirely out of the question. We were both expecting a no, but, like I said, God is good and He is consistently surpassing my expectations. Not only did the pastor give the okay, but he also suggested that instead of going for a weekend, we use the time set aside for our semester outreach trip to go to this Middle Eastern country instead of the other destinations that my classmates are going to. I was astounded! I don’t know if this conveys the gravity of the situation, but students don’t merely choose their own outreach location. We pray about the four or five options, tell them our top two and then are placed on a team. The fact that the pastor is making such a huge exception for me to go just blows my mind. I am reminded that God’s call is His enablement and He uses the people around us to help us along the way to be all that He has called us to be.
The next okay I needed was from my parents and I didn’t know if this new development would receive the warmest welcome from them. My parents love the Lord and they love me very much, but they don’t love the idea of me being a missionary in the Middle East. I knew when I first sensed God calling me there that breaking the news to my parents would not be fun or easy. I actually waited almost three months before I told them about it. It wasn’t until I was absolutely positive that this was where God had called me that I shared with them that call, and it didn’t go over well. I don’t know why God called me to this region, and I don’t know what will happen to me, but I do know that I love my parents and don’t want to hurt them, so telling them that I felt the Lord asking me to be a missionary there was hard. It’s news no parent wants to hear, but I have seen God work on their hearts and help them surrender me into His hands over this past year or so. Even with their apparent peace with it, I doubted that they would like the idea of me going there so soon. I texted them asking for permission and my dad responded saying, “Awesome!” and then went onto another subject so I wasn’t actually sure if the “awesome” was directed toward my plans to travel to the Middle East or toward something else and I had to ask again to clarify. If my heart had a face, its jaw would have dropped when my dad responded, “Go to the Middle East”.
God has just been blowing the doors off of the hinges and I am so excited to see what He has in store for the rest of the semester, and especially for this trip.
So that brings me to my prayer requests this week:
-That we would be Spirit led and filled as we plan this short mission trip.
-That God would bless the missionaries who we are visiting and continue to protect and use them.
-For safety in traveling to this country and while we are there.
-That God would continue to open and close doors as He sees fit.
-That He would continue to give me direction as to “the next step”.
In General:
-That I would be loving toward my roommates (in my heart and thoughts as well as my deeds).
-That I would be diligent in my studies.
This verse has been coming to mind this week and I’d like to encourage all of you with it, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Never did I imagine that I would be stepping out in this way so soon, but I am so excited to walk through the doors God has opened and see what He has waiting for me on the other side of them. Thank you for continuing to join me in prayer as we praise Him for all that He had done and all He has yet to do. I love you all and pray that the Lord would bless and keep you, that He would make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you, that He would lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26)