I had mentioned in my last post about applying with the
North American Mission Board (or NAMB) for this upcoming summer.
NAMB has
a program that can hook you up with mission opportunites for the summer. There is the option for just doing your mission job or doing missions while working a secular job.
They have so many options and pretty much everywhere!
From Alaska to Maine, Canada to Texas and Hawaii.
I had once started an application with NAMB last year, but didn't finish it. I instead found out about another opportunity that led me to my internship in Mobile, AL.
It seems that whenever one summer ends, I immediately begin to think about what to do the next summer. I don't like taking summer classes because I would rather leave it open for some kind of mission opportunity. I want to use that time to serve others and the Lord.
Not only does it help others, but it helps me. I learn so much about myself and Christ. I learn more and more how to love like Him. To take care of others that so often get overlooked.
See, my dream is to just travel the world, or just this nation, and serve people. I want to help meet other's needs. I want to love them. I want to show them the love of Christ. I want them to know Him and to build their own relationship with Him. And in turn, watch them show His love to others.
I want His Kingdom to be increased. I want it to expand.
I can't wait for the day when people from every nation, tribe, people, and language gather around the throne of God and praise Him.
And I know that it will.
"After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
'Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.'"
Revelation 7: 9-10
I started learning and hearing from God more last year that while I am still in school to stay in the country and work domestically. To focus on my Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. Then, after school look towards the "ends of the earth."
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:8
There is a great need for service to people in my town, at school, my state and this nation. Since I am still here in school (for another year), now is the best time to serve them. To go out and reach them and serve them.
Then, hopefully, by God's grace, I can look to the ends of the earth and He will send me somewhere amazing.
I don't think I have talked about it a lot here, but my dream and hope of one day going to Africa has not vanished.
And who knows, within the coming years, the Lord may place another country on my heart.
However, since I am still in school, I have felt the call to serve domestically.
But from past summers and experiences, I didn't know if I wanted to repeat those or let God lead me somewhere else.
Back to the desert of
Arizona? Back to
Inner City Mobile, AL? Stay in my small town and work and serve my church here? All places that mean a lot ot me.
Working with and serving the TO people in Arizona and the kids and homeless in Mobile, introduced me to a world of poverty that I had never experienced. I knew that it existed, but didn't understand it fully until I lived with them for a week and then for a summer. Even then, living much more richly then they. Sitting around in all my comfort...just wanting to give it away.
Nothing more breaks your heart than when you are playing with a TO child, a precious Indian child in the desert with heat and mountains surrounding you, and they ask you if you can take them back home.
I wanted nothing more than to take them back home.
To have them and me on a plane back to Alabama.
I would have done it too.
And, in another memory, taking a car full of girls back to their home, windows rolled down, Alabama shakers being held out the windows, and them singing loudly along with the radio, when we get to their house, they ask for the shakers.
All the Alabama shakers that I had collected from so many football games got carried away.
I didn't think twice.
After serving in Mobile this past summer, my heart and passion for inner-city and the "least of these" grew even stronger.
So, where to go now? This summer that seems so distant but very close at the same time.
Where will I go to serve this year? Where will God lead me to build new relationships?
Who will it involve?
I don't know for sure. But, I am confident that He will send me where He wants me.
And I know that wherever He sends me, I will be taught and blessed by the people that I serve.
I can only pray that I will be as much of a blessing to them as well.
So, I have decided again to link up with NAMB. In the hope that somewhere on that long PDF file, there is a place for me. A place that God has for me.
Not knowing can be saddening and frustrating at times, but I trust that it is all taken care of.
I'm learning to have patience and to wait for God.
For He knows the best time for everything.
Learning patience is never easy and is tested every day. And every day I fail. I can see signs of hope, but I still fail.
Praise Him for loving us so much that even in these failures, He still loves us and wants to use us.
Patience is coming.
Faith is growing.
Doubt is fading.
"For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay."
Habakkuk 2:3
