Seventeen years ago, I experienced Father's call on my life to go into service overseas for Him. The message that day was moving, and at the end they issued a call for anyone who wanted to commit to go to come forward. I bounded forward, so surprised that I was the only one there!! From then on I took it for granted that I would serve Him overseas. I made my college decision when I saw the wall of people who had served overseas on the wall at Wheaton. I learned Spanish, kept going back to Honduras over and over, in the process learning differing aspects of international work there. I had such passion for Latin America and such a desire to serve there. Hard times came, the organization went under and got reborn, Mrs. Sevilla died, we got robbed that one Christmas, then Father brought me peace and a trip to Mexico that was wonderful, with a clear invitation to go serve with them...but after prayer, that wasn't His will. He called me to start in Jerusalem by going back to Heritage to teach. Which happened, and was such a step of obedience, and He so richly rewarded me there in my students and in my life. I watched as friend after friend moved on in life, getting married or going into full time service themselves. I stayed at Heritage, the decision determined each year by prayer. I made this great friend, Kandice. We shared a passion for culture, international stuff, and overseas service. She talked about Asia all the time, loved everything Asian, like I had always done about Latin America. For about six years we shared life in Indianapolis, waiting to fulfill God's call on our lives in His time. About the same time as she started definitively moving into full time service, I planned a year "around the world" to see the needs for myself, visit friends involved in overseas work, and explore more deeply Father's call in my life to overseas service. After going, I knew and understood from the heart why our overseas service director at College Park and the Perspectives class I had to take kept saying "the unreached world, the 10/40 window" every time I said "Latin America!" I had been to some of those unreached places and I got it. But no call. I told Him I really couldn't see myself in the Muslim world (Caspian or North Africa were the areas I visited) without a husband to work alongside me. I adored India, but the Indians were doing it themselves and it was pretty clear they didn't need me. I came home from my time with no clear call, no further direction. I went back to Honduras, and saw for myself that I fit there, could speak the language and get around, but now more clearly understood that I really wasn't needed there either. I came home, prayed, and started job hunting in the States, since I needed an income and had no call. Then my friend Kandice got cancer, just before she was scheduled to leave for the field.
Those two things combined--no call on my life and cancer in hers, was a really tough punch on my spirit. Why was He throwing away his people? Didn't He want the nations reached? With the pain of cancer, I was given the ability to set aside the whys and focus on the Who like I'd learned we're supposed to do, but the why of waste in overseas service nagged at my soul. I cried a lot of it out at Urbana (missions conference) but my own unfulfilled promise to Him at age twelve lay as an unspoken burden on my soul. One of the lessons I had to learn was surrender. Surrender of my friend's life, surrender of trying to understand Him, surrender of even my own promise to Him and let Him use me however. Even if it meant a really tough job at an urban school where they clearly needed the Light but I wasn't sure I was going to make it through!
Then Kandice died without ever living overseas. No miraculous healing. An amazing character, even through cancer, but what about the Deaf in Central Asia she longed to reach? Somehow too in my spirit I gave up on my own call from age twelve. I was so disappointed that He would not use someone He had so clearly called and been preparing that I gave up on myself. Assumed He didn't want to use me overseas either. Felt very very called to Ben Davis at the beginning of this year, and decided His call had just been to see if I was willing to serve, and leading me perhaps to urban service at this high school forever. That it was stupid to have been hanging on to that overseas dream He had given to me at twelve (what does a twelve year old know?) for so long.
Then came this year's global conference at church. Not just one weekend, but three. I was involved in presenting a lot and heard even more, and had decided my role was as a sender and as light in a cross cultural urban setting here in the States. But I felt that restlessness I wrote about in late October.
So I met with College Park's global director, and that very night found myself applying to an organization to go to China and teach English. Over these last six weeks I've gone through the whole application process with what feels like faster-than-rollercoaster speed (especially when coming on top of a very busy time of year at school). I was accepted into the program!!! Now the decision was mine--commit or decline?
So I did what I do when I make these life decisions.. journaled and got on my knees. I do this every year, but I'd never had a time like this one. Father was so close, so much so that am crying right now just remembering it. I laid out every reason I had NOT to go to Asia before Him, and He gave me an answer for every objection. Then He started laying out for me the reasons I SHOULD go, and gently before my eyes assembling the puzzle pieces of my life...right down to my friendship with Kandice and her consistent love for Asia she managed to drill into me over about eight years of friendship. The fact that He is allowing me to follow a pattern of first Jerusalem (Heritage) then Samaria (definitely Ben Davis) then the rest of the world (Asia). How much Ben Davis has prepared me for Asia in giving me a lot more humility, dependence on Him, and willingness to learn a culture I do not necessarily feel a natural affinity for at the very beginning, plus the perseverance to go back to a hard place and do it again every day, after day, after day. The friends He put in my life involved with this China organization. That English class I didn't even need but took by mistake my freshman year at Wheaton where I heard about this China organization for the first time, and got so fired up that I was going to move to China that I started eating sweet and sour chicken in the cafeteria with chopsticks every chance I got, and told my parents that Christmas that I was moving to China. Father had put that desire there, and it's lain dormant since then, but that was on purpose. He hadn't forgotten about me, set me aside, or decided not to fulfill his call on my life like I thought He had!!! He'd been planning, molding me, shaping me, getting me ready all along!! There's no WAY I would have been ready to move overseas just after college, or even two years ago. But the time has come, and a door is finally opening for me to go!! I'm so overwhelmed with blessing. After these seventeen years of waiting, I see this call as a gift rather than a right. It's all grace, and I SEE that now in a way I would not have even at the end of my "world tour." Now is the time, and I am rejoicing in being able to see the tender planning care He is taking of my life.
So what is it exactly I'll be doing overseas? The short answer is teaching English and building relationships with students. This organization sends English teachers by government invitation to teach in national universities in several countries in Asia. I'll be the best teacher I can be there, and get the chance to build relationships with students there. While building those relationships, I'll have a chance to discuss Truth with students and perhaps Mentor them about life issues, read the Book together perhaps, and learn together to follow the narrow way.
There's so much more to share about what He's been doing in my life that I'd love to meet in person and talk about it some more. Over the two weeks off I have for winter break I'd love to connect with people and continue to share about the goodness of heaven and mutually encourage one another!!
Oh, and PS thanks for reading this saga all the way to the end...I did warn you in the title it'd be book-length!!!
