Less Than 12 Hours!

In 12 hours I'll be landing in the JFK airport to start off my 5.5 hour layover before taking off towards Ghana!  I can't believe the time is already here.  It seems so surreal.  This past Sunday, Mother's Day, I was able to say goodbye to my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.).  My mom even made me an awesome cake!  Check it out!  :) 

Over the last couple days I've managed to get my bags packed.  One bag to check in (weighing 41.5 lbs), a carry-on, and a "purse."  My "purse" just happens to be big enough to carry my netbook along with several of my textbooks for the semester!  Several of my friends and family have also contributed to my packing by telling me their favorite scripture verses to write on index cards and disperse throughout my luggage.  I figure this serves two purposes.  First, it is encouragement for me as I find these cards throughout my time in Ghana.  Second, if my luggage is inspected then the individual doing the search will see the scriptures.  You never know what God can do through His Word! 

As I've mentioned before, I plan on blogging while I'm there.  Hopefully, I'll get this opportunity approximately every other day, but this will depend on where we are, what time I have, and whether or not I have an internet connection.

Prayer Requests:
- Please pray for safe travels tomorrow.
- Pray that the Lord would grant each of us an overwhelming peace knowing that we go in obedience to His calling.

Thanks again for your support.  If you have any questions, comments, or requests while I'm away, please feel free to leave a comment.  Not sure how well I'll be able to answer, but I would love to know what you're interested in hearing about!

God bless!

Called Here First

The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with Him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.- Luke 8:38-39

I am so excited for my trip!  It's less that six weeks away and I'm thrilled to see what God is going to do in and through us as we minister to the people of Ghana.  As I've been preparing, however, God has been reminding me of my first calling.  It's okay for me to be excited about going to a foreign land to serve the Lord, but I need to remember that I was called to my home town, my family, and my school first.  He's been reminding me to "return home and tell how much God has done for [me]," 

As I learned on my last mission trip, and seem to have forgotten rather quickly, I don't have to leave my city or even my street to serve others and share the love of Christ with those around me.  I can do that wherever I am.  So often, however, I get so focused and excited about what God has in store for me next that I forget what He's doing right now where I am.  If I'm constantly focused on the next thing, I'll never stop to see the great things He has prepared for me here.

For those of you keeping up with my travel preparations, we are five weeks from departure as of tomorrow!  I'll be shipping out my passport Friday morning to the Ghanaian Embassy to apply for my travel visa.  I'll also be getting a myriad of vaccines that same morning.  Please be praying for both of these events:  that all of our visas will be approved and returned quickly and that I react well to the vaccines.  Please also continue praying for the members of our team - that God would build each of us up and strengthen us in Him.  Finally, pray for open doors and open hearts in Ghana - hat God would prepare the way for us and be setting up diving appointments.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support.  I wouldn't be able to do this without you.

A Calling

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.

A Bit of History

Having been raised in a Christian family I came to know Christ as my savior at a very early age.  My grandparents like to recount stories of me as a four-year-old standing on the fireplace behind a table with my wooden spoon as I preached to them.  Apparently I was a very harsh pastor as I asked my grandmother to leave once if she couldn't stop laughing!  It's funny now to look back on that considering I'm currently at Regent University's School of Divinity where I'm learning what I would need to work as a pastor.  The road getting here was long and filled with short side-stops, but God was leading me to this point through it all.

My freshman year of undergrad I really began to live my life for Christ.  I had been saved for a long time, went to church, stayed out of trouble, but I was trying to just maintain my faith and live a very low-key Christian life that really started to look more like a "good girl" secular life rather than a life filled with the love of God.  That year I became more deliberate in my daily devotions, took more time in prayer, and got involved in small groups/Bible studies.  It was during this year that God began to speak to me about going into the mission field.  I still felt like I was supposed to finish my education, however, so I put this idea of mission work on a shelf for a while and continued on with school and life as usual.  In fact, I put it so far back on a shelf that I nearly forgot it was there.

The next year I started a second major in Elementary Education.  I love working with kids and felt like getting a double major in education along with my major in Psychology would be a perfect fit.  For a long time I had considered being a child psychologist and thought this would be a good stepping stone.  By the time I finished student teaching, however, I was so invested in that and enjoyed working with the kids so much that I decided I would just apply to teach the following year.  I had applications in, had begun the initial interview process, and was waiting to hear back from school districts.

By the end of February/beginning of March I started realizing that my heart wasn’t in teaching anymore.  I realized that I was going into teaching because it was the logical next step.  I had a teaching certificate so what else would I possibly be doing?  It was around this time that the possibility of going to Regent University came up.  I really had no desire to go to grad school, but figured I would look at the website just so I could tell people I had looked into and it wasn’t for me.  Come to find out, it was!  As I looked through the degree programs, the classes I would be taking, the opportunities that would be offered to serve while there, God just began to say, “This is where I need you next.”

This was so completely against the plans that I had made.  It would take me back to school, away from a city and friends I had grown to love very deeply, and would not be using my teaching degree at all!  I began to pray in earnest that God would reveal what I was supposed to do.  And then I went to a retreat with my church . . .

(For the sake of length you’ll have to tune into the next post to hear the rest of the story! :)