This morning at the staff meeting, we read Jonah 1 and a
question that was asked was something like “have you ever been in a situation
where God was calling you to do something else that you didn’t want to do?”
(Those words aren’t exact but it’s similar) and the first thought that came to
my mind was me being in ministry and being in Texas. I fought God on going into
ministry and it took Him having me leave my familiar surroundings and leave the
country for me to finally say yes to Him and stop arguing and fighting Him on
what He was calling me to do. So, I wanted to share with you all my call story
and how I got to be where I am at in Texas and how I was able to relate to the
Jonah story and situation.
I attended
training in New York for 3 weeks and was commissioned as a United Methodist
missionary on August 12. I am now apart of the Young Adult Missionary class of
2013-2015 with 13 other US-2’s that will be serving in the United States and 15
Mission Interns that will be serving outside the United States. Both the US-2
and Mission Intern programs are 2 year programs where we will engage with and
learn from communities that are working for systematic change around issues
including poverty, racism, migration, access to healthcare, and environmental
degradation and focused on sending people from everywhere to everywhere since
there’s a need for missionaries, both here in the United States and over seas.
So, a little bit
about how I got to where I am and where I am going. It was in college my
freshman year that I attended my 1st mission trip to Lake Charles,
Louisiana to help with the continued clean up from Hurricane Katrina. After
that exposure trip I started to gain a passion for missions but I had also
always wanted to be a teacher.
So, my junior
year I started wrestling with God on what I was meant to do with my life. I
started to not like the classes I was taking but wasn’t about to give up my
goal of being a teacher for ministry. I had professors and friends telling me
that they saw the passion in me for missions but not teaching but continued
ignoring what was being said since I was determined to be a teacher since that
had always been my goal… That summer I studied abroad in Costa Rica and again I
kept getting told what I had heard all year, that people saw my passion for
ministry but not teaching but I continued ignoring what was being said and
pushed those comments aside without giving it too much thought or
consideration…
Until I was with
my second host family and decided to have a devotion and read some scripture.
The scripture that I ended up reading was Luke 8:57-62 which was on the cost of
following Jesus.
After reading
that passage and especially the last part that says, “no one who puts a hand to
the plow and looks back if fit for service in the kingdom of God.” I had to
stop right there since I realized that I was very guilty of looking back at
what I was striving to accomplish. That I had wanted to be a Spanish teacher so
bad that I was trying to ignore God and the prompting that He had placed and
kept placing on my heart and passion for ministry for the past 4 years (which
was evident when it came to my involvement and passion for InterVarsity
Christian Fellowship during college)… I was guilty of telling God, “I will do
ministry but 1st let me graduate with my teaching degree” and after
having a conversation with God and beginning to let go of my dream and goal and
all that I had done up to that point, I finally decided to surrender my career
over to God and follow Him into ministry so I went back to school my senior
year and dropped my Spanish education major right away without arguing with God
anymore since I realized that God was more patient than I am and no matter how
stubborn I was with Him, He was going to continue pursuing me and getting me
into ministry weather I liked it or not.
It wasn’t an
easy journey getting to where I am at now due to my own goals and desires
standing in the way but God knew what He was doing and He was able to deal with
me fighting His prompting me into ministry to eventually find myself leaving
behind my goals and expectations for Gods plan for my life which ended up being
ministry.
Now you might be
asking, well how did you end up entering ministry with the General Board of
Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church and not with a different
organization? That answer is not simple but here’s the short version. I truly
thought that I was going to be partnering with a collegiate ministry (such as
InterVarsity) since it was such a huge part of my life in college and I wanted
to be the mentor to other college students that my mentor was to me and guide
college students spiritually. However I also thought that I would be returning
to Costa Rica to do ministry. Therefore, I completed a long application for
InterVarsity’s sister movement called the International Fellowship of Evangelical
Students. After going through the entire process I eventually got word that I
was not going to be hired on staff. After that, I still thought I was meant to
do collegiate ministry so I applied for the Coalition of Campus Outreach and
interviewed with them over Christmas break at a missions conference in St.
Louis called Urbana. However, I later got word that I was not going to be hired
on staff with them either. Yes, I was upset and wrestled with the question of
“what does ministry look like for me since I know ministry if where God is
leading me”…
Well, it was at
Urbana, the mission’s conference that I spent most of the time and many hours
in the exhibit hall walking around to see what type of ministry opportunities
were available. It was one of the last days that I found myself standing in
front of the General Board of Global Ministries booth and talking with Dan (one
of the staff with the General Board of Global Ministries). After being turned
down to be hired with both collegiate ministries, I received an email from the
General Board of Global Ministries saying that they were accepting application
so I decided why not give it a try and see what happens. After completing a 3rd
long application and waiting, I received word that I was invited to the
Interview and Discernment Days in Oklahoma City (which happen to be during my
Spring break). I attended the week long process and after returning home and a
lot of waiting, I got the email saying that I had been accepted to join the
General Board of Global Ministries as a US-2 missionary. Now this wasn’t what I
had originally expected since I had applied to be a mission intern where I
would be leaving the country but even with that difference I accepted the offer
to partner with the General Board of Global Ministries as a US-2 missionary.
Now I am serving
in Dallas Texas as a US-2 missionary with the Dallas Leadership Foundation. The
Dallas
Leadership is a Christian not-for-profit organization that serves severely
distressed neighborhoods, including those with poverty rates of 27.4 percent or
more. I am serving with the community development department as well as the
youth leadership department. (If you want to know more specifics then read some
of my previous blog posts or comment below and I would love to talk to you more
about what it is that I am actually doing down here in Texas!)
There are many places in scripture that tells us to go and make
disciples of men and the church is meant to partner with others and be a
witness of who God is. This is a calling for everyone that God has given us and
it’s a message that I have answered by saying yes to God and to participate in
this 2-year program.
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