So I really have no idea where to start this blog. The idea of this blog came to me one day in nutrition class and really out of nowhere (well I know where it came from) I wrote pre-missions blog on the side of my printed nutrition notes. I just looked at it and stared, hmmmm God so thats where you want me to start I thought. And well I really couldn't concentrate on a whole lot else other than this revelation God just gave me. I really have no idea where God wants me to be in the future. However I know without a shadow of a doubt that God wants me to Go, and I mean Matthew 28 Go. I know that you should be a missionary where ever you are and everyday I try to be, but I know that God has given me a heart to go and serve. There are many reasons why I want to go and let's be honest, there are many reasons why I don't and I am pretty sure that I will go over a lot them.
Being a college student it is all too easy to have this go-with-the-flow attitude, and sometimes thats where you need to be but when God has given you a specific command, you need to change your routine in order to follow it. So hopefully this documentation will help me reflect and keep my eyes open (thanks needtobreathe). So to briefly start off my interest in missions, I guess I would have to start off in my freshman year. I first heard about the Spring break mission trip that I would be going on during one service in my college church service. Two words "Dominican Republic". I had never gone on a mission trip before ever. I was used to the high school youth group that had Wednesday services, bible study and church camps, but never a real mission trip. And I knew that there would be french speaking Haitians because the country bordered Haiti, and I had been studying french since the seventh grade. So the least to say, I was intrigued. So after having prayed, explaining to my parents and begging family members for some money, I was ready..... so at least I thought. Two months before we went, Haiti experienced the infamous massive earthquake that devastated their country. This caused many Haitians to leave Haiti and take refuge in the Dominican Republic. Seeing clips on the news I was heart broken. And the frustrating part is that I couldn't even comprehend their hurt. So many lives were taken away so quickly that day in late Janurary, living in America, I knew that I would never be that deprived and devastated. But the crazy thing to think about at that time was that I was going to be close to there! How crazy is that??????? I thought to myself. So I started to pray for people that God would put in my path during that week.
Being in the dominican...... it felt right. I loved being uncomfortable for Jesus. I loved praying in the streets, and asking complete strangers what they believed, I loved sharing why I loved Jesus. I felt insufficient at first. I felt as if I needed to have low expectations of how God was going to use me. One of the days that we were there and we were prayer walking through on of the barios and a friend starts walking towards us with a dominican and the friend looked and pointed towards me. Once they came close within talking distance, my friend introduces me to luckson, a Haitian that came from port-au-prince haiti. "She speaks french" my friend referring me. I was so excited I could believe it! Then was when we had a french conversation when I learned that his dad was crushed by his house during the earthquake and his mother was in the hospital. I also learned that his father was a youth leader for his church. As sad I was to hear his story I was so happy to meet him, I knew that I wanted to do something for him, but I was in the country for such a short time, I didn't know what to do, so I asked my college leader if I could give him a Bible, not the ones that we were handing out in spanish but one in english because Luckson knew english better than he did spanish. His face was so appreciative after I gave him the bible. He has dreams to be completely tri-lingual and go to college so he was so glad he had that Bible.
The whole entire week was incredible. The week after coming back from the trip, I felt that I still needed to be there. It was hard to be back.
So this is just the start of everything but I will continue..... until then.
