The Road to Missions #2

At this point (2006) in our mission journey, missions was exciting and still in the very distant future. Today (2012), going into missions still excites us, but in a more realistic way (we know it's not all fun and easy, we know it involves living very far from loved ones, we know it means a different lifestyle for our children), and it doesn't seem like such a thing of the distant future anymore.

In the year after the summer where God first caught our attention for missions, lots happened. I started my first year of college, Ben worked construction full-time, we got engaged (March 24, 07), and that following summer, I helped lead a mission trip with Teen Missions again, this time to Wales.

I chose Grace College. God blessed me with a full-ride scholarship that allowed me to attend Grace. I had an English major and missions minor. The only missions class I took my first year was Intro to Missions, but Dr. Peugh shared amazing stories from his experience in missions and taught me many basics about missions and about the need in the world. He has a heart for God and for the proclamation of the gospel like few people I know, and I was thankful to sit under his teaching.

Also at Grace, I met my best friend Abbey who became an accountability partner in many areas in my life, including my relationship with Ben, my attitude, my time with God, and my heart for missions. She has never been afraid to ask the hard questions, and I'm thankful for her.

After my first year of college, I packed up and headed away for 2 months again, this time to Wales. I had decided that going as an assistant leader would be a good idea. At this point, Ben and I were thinking that I would finish my time at Grace College, and then we would join staff with Teen Missions in Florida. Teen Missions is a great organization, and Ben and I are forever grateful to them for the way God worked through them to catch our hearts. But our motives for being interested in serving with them weren't right. Teen Missions was fun to us. If we worked in Florida, we got the best of both worlds. We got to live in America, in a sunny state and near the beach, we got to lead fun trips overseas every summer, and we got to do missions all at the same time. (Please hear me out, I know there are many people who are missionaries who work at headquarters in the U.S. and have the right heart and are exactly where God wants them. We were not those people however. I also know that our idea of working in the U.S. was that it would be easy and I realize that that is a false view...). We meant well, but God just had a lot of maturing to do in our hearts still to help us truly understand the gospel and the need in the world and where we fit into that.

So because we were strongly considering joining staff with Teen Missions, we thought it would be a good idea for me to be an assistant leader on a team. My mom's family from way, way long ago came to America from Wales, so Wales has always interested me. Our team worked at an organization in Wales called Save the Family. This organization helps those who are addicts and homeless to get back on their feet again. My job, as a leader, was to take care of the team of 27 teens (!!!!!) along with three other leaders. I cooked, I supervised projects, I had heart-to-hearts, I stayed up late, I woke up early, I created activities, etc. It was a tiring summer, but one in which I learned a lot. I learned about leadership, I learned about making hard choices that involved real lives, I learned to cook (for a lot of people!), I learned to be flexible (this one was hard for me... James 4:13-16 was pointed out to me by one of the team members and has become somewhat of a life verse for me), I learned to love those who are hard to love (do you want to know how many hours I spent picking lice out of a team member's hair?), I learned that missions is tough, I learned that it's impossible to make everyone happy, I learned that "it's not about ME!", I learned how to survive off of little sleep, and I know I learned many other things as well.
(lady leaders)
I came back from this summer, still as sure as ever that God wanted us in missions. However, it was a much different summer than the one I had in Africa. We still did not know where God wanted us in missions. We still planned for me to finish college and then to head to Teen Missions. But at this point, we had a wedding to plan which meant no mission trips were planned for the next summer. Missions was put on hold for now. Truly, we kind of placed it on the back burner at this point.