Forgive me for leaving you in suspense at the end of my last post. The story was getting a bit long and I hadn’t even gotten to the coolest part yet! So where did I leave you . . . oh yeah . . .
In March of 2010 I went on a weekend retreat with my church in Williamsburg and man did God show up! As I mentioned before I had a teaching license and was struggling with the idea of not using what I went to school to get. That first night the speaker talked about Moses. It wasn’t his main point, but it is the point that spoke the most to me. He mentioned how Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s house and received the greatest education Egypt could offer in hopes that one day he would use that education to lead the nation of Egypt. God, however, used it to lead the Israelite nation out of Egypt. The speaker simply said that the training we have or will receive will not always be used in the way we think it will. It really hit me at that moment that just because I had a teaching license didn’t mean God wanted me in a classroom. He had another purpose for that education.
That same night we had an amazing altar call. After praying with people for awhile, the speaker said he felt like there were some that needed to wrestle with God for their identity like Jacob wrestled with the angel (Genesis 32). He asked for everyone to back up and make space for these people. As I was kneeling in prayer wondering if maybe he was talking about me, I looked up to see if I should move forward. I found myself already at the front where everyone around me had backed away! I figured that was God’s subtle way of letting me know this was for me. I sat there begging God to reveal my identity and the plan He had for me. I heard the name “Sarai” in my head and at first tried to silence my thoughts so I could hear God. “Sarai,” I heard again. It took a couple times of that for me to realize that this was God answering me and not just another distracting thought.
I decided I needed to move away from the group and just listen to God so I grabbed my Bible and headed to the very back of the room. God led me to the very first mention of Sarai in Genesis 11 and then to how she is mentioned in Genesis 12. Through these passages God showed me that I would travel into lands that I don’t yet know. He also told me that I wouldn’t be traveling alone, but that I would be going with others. Immediately following this revelation God gave me a vision of myself walking through an African village. As I walked between these mud huts children poured out of them and ran up to see me with smiles on their faces. In many other ways prior to this God had placed the country of Ghana on my heart. As I saw these children in this vision I knew that it was a Ghanaian village and that I would someday meet these children and work with them.
That night alone was life-changing, but God wasn’t done yet. On Sunday morning as we finished up the weekend with our last session, God gave me another vision. Once again I was in an African village, but this time I was in a one-room church watching about 150 African men worshipping the Lord with everything in them. God told me that when He sends me I’ll be sent to everyone I come in contact with, not just the children. Up until this point I had limited myself to working just with the kids because that’s where I had experience, but God told me that I can’t limit myself. I am called to everyone He sends me to.
There is so much more to say and I wish that I had the words to express the peace that poured over me as I left that retreat. I came that weekend unsure of what God was calling me to and left with a more specific calling than I ever anticipated. As soon as I got home I finished my application to Regent University and sent in it with the peace of knowing that I didn’t have to worry about whether I would get in or how I would pay for it because I knew I was being obedient to the call God had placed on my life. God confirmed all of this over and over again, but as this post has become even longer than the last I’ll save those stories for next time.
As I mentioned in my first post this blog is not only a way for me to share my heart concerning missions, but also to keep you informed of preparations for my trip and to share prayer requests and praises.
Prayer Requests:
- Pray that each person preparing for these trips (Ghana in May and Europe in July) would be strengthened physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
- Pray that God would provide the finances for each of us.
- Pray that all the logistics of the trips would continue to fall into place and that we would continue to seek God’s Will in each ministry we set up to partner with while there.
- Pray that God would even now begin to open the hearts of the people He is sending us to.
It was awesome to hear your testimony in these last two posts--I'd been wondering how you went from "Well, God used Moses' training as ruler of Egypt to lead the Israelites, so we'll see what God has in store for me," to all the missions you've been planning or going on just recently!
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