what's going on...

Hola!

So hopefully I’ve told you this first bit, or at maybe you just heard about my recent movement from a friend, or at the very least you read about it on someone else's facebook. If it is either of the latter, I sincerely apologize, but hopefully after this explanation of why I have a blog will help you forgive my lack of communication.

I’ve been praying for the last six years about following God in his plan for me to be a missionary. This has been a very frustrating journey, because I’ve known God wants me to do long term missions ever since He told me when I was in high school. Since then I have followed Him to nursing school, ASP, short term missions including South Africa last summer, and even flight school (that's right, if you haven't heard I’m getting my pilot's license!). In each of these ventures as well as my everyday life God has been preparing me to be a missionary. It’s been amazing! However, the last few months have left me frustrated and disappointed that God wasn't putting me to better use. I have not been taking any classes at school this spring semester because I have to retake a class that I took in the fall next fall, and then finish up two other classes next spring. This was a devastating situation for my morale because it didn't seem fair. But I know now that God had a much larger design for my little life.

This situation has caused me to make some crazy seeming decisions. For example about a month ago, I decided to join the group from the Christian fellowship on my campus (DRL) that I am a leader in on their trip to Guatemala. Five days later I was on my way there. Many people didn't even realize I went until after I got back. But it was a life changing experience. The biggest impact the trip had on my life was reaffirming the feeling I had that God was sending me somewhere soon. I came back not knowing where (though irony would have it that a certain missionary there told me to be careful what I prayed for when I mentioned that I would love to go to India) or when. Right after I got back from San Miguel Chicaj, I lost a really promising job opportunity because the woman that I would be working for passed away. Though this was obviously very sad, I was angry that I was out of the one thing that might make me feel like I wasn't totally wasting my time. I basically spent the following week alone with God trying to figure out what was going to happen. Then my friend's Tiffany and Josh gave me tickets to a Chris Tomlin concert that weekend to attend with my best friend, Leah Huffman. It was an amazing concert, and sort of just broke me down. I spent almost the entire next day searching online for opportunities to continue the mission training God was slowly having me go through. I looked at returning to either of the places I went last summer. Either back to Sarah Fox Children's Convalescent Hospital in Cape Town, or the Lighthouse Children's Shelter in Rustenburg, South Africa. I also looked into Watoto, a mission in Uganda that I was interested in volunteering with or at least donating money to.

After searching all of these and more possibilities I kept ending up back at a list of discipleship training schools (DTS) through the organization Youth With A Mission (YWAM). This is the group I went to Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama with in the past. When I first heard about the DTS program four years ago, I decided I wanted to do one has soon as I had the six months to spare, assuming that would be after graduation. Then when I ended up not in school this semester, it seemed perfect, except that I had to pay rent and decided to take the “safer” route of working instead. Obviously, this was not working out very well for me. I kept hoping that I would find a DTS at one of the YWAM bases that would end before school started again in the fall, but none of the dates fit in. I went to bed angry and lost and praying that God would just send me out already.

The next morning I awoke to an email in response to one I had sent to a YWAM base over a month before asking for clarification about dates. The registrar for the YWAM San Diego/Baja base apologized saying that my email went to her junk folder, and that if I was still interested in the DTS that would start the next week that I should call her. A few hours later she let me know that the program would indeed end in time for me to get back to school. As we prayed over the phone my heart was decided, but I gave myself twenty-four hours to pray about the decision. On Tuesday, with two days until I left for a previously planned trip to New York with Leah to see our friend Sebastian from Munich, I excitedly started trying to figure out how I could just up and leave my life, and move down to Tecate, Mexico that Sunday.

At this point if you’re shaking your head and thinking about how crazy I am, I don’t blame you. That is basically the response I’ve gotten from everyone. It’s true though that when you unquestioningly follow God’s call, it looks a little crazy to other people. But I knew God knew what He was doing, even if what He was doing was sending me to a place where I didn’t speak the language, where I’d have to spend the money I hadn’t been making, where there were increasing numbers of murders due to drug wars, and where I’d have to be in less than a week.

After a lot of goodbyes, a heartwarming surprise send-off party, a special weekend in New York and a lot of traveling, I’m now enjoying the YWAM base in Tecate, Mexico. I’m really overwhelmed at how intense this whole deal has been, as well as the language barrier going on here. Though it’s not going to be a barrier much longer. That’s right, I’m learning Spanish! Haha! Right now I’m just struggling, but it’s kinda fun! I’m also overwhelmed at the fact that I am so different from the rest of my team. This is the first DTS staffed completely by Mexicans, and the students are even all Mexican except for me and one other girl. It’s strange being the only person with blonde hair and blue eyes. Not to mention the fact that I’m taller than, I’m pretty sure everyone else here. It’s so great though! I’m already making friends. I can tell we’re really going to be a family here. Everyone is so kind and loving. And I’m already growing in my faith as well.

This discipleship training school is basically working as direct training for me to become a missionary. We’re spending the next three months here in Mexico, and then we’re hoping to do two months of outreach in India as well. This I am SO excited for, however, we cannot go if we do not raise enough support. We are raising this support as a group, and we will have a specific goal soon, but I want to through out the request that you start praying now about whether you are willing to support us as missionaries on our outreach in India. If you do not feel led to donate financially, I ask that you pray for all of us down here. We’ve only been here for one day, but it is so amazing what God is already doing and what He has planned.