My primary purpose for starting this blog is so that you all can pr*y for me and keep up with all that the Father is doing while I am living in Africa, but I thought it might be important to know how I actually came to make this decision. So, here we go...
I probably would say that my first awareness of a love for Africa started at age 4. I somehow found the Africa section of the library and there began the obsession with a continent that I have grown to love. The affection has changed over the years and progressed in different stages of my life. It started with a simple fascination at age 4 with people who lived in grass huts, something very different from my life here, and an interest in animals like giraffe, lions, zebra, etc that I thought were beautiful.
It progressed by high school to a general interest in travelling abroad, a desire to go on safari, and concern for people who didn't know Chr*st. I grew up watching the Ethiopian famine (early to mid 1980's over a million people died) and South African apartheid on the evening news. So seeing suffering in the world and racial discrimination and trying to make some sense of it, I began to question why the L*rd had made me a white American middle class girl. In my frustration and search for an answer to that question, He lead me to Acts 17:26 "And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek G*d, in the hope that they might feel their way toward Him and find Him." I no longer felt guilty that I had been given so much, but instead felt great responsibility in all I had been given. I still fully trust that the L*rd had purpose in the time He placed me in within history, where I lived and grew up, the color of my skin, my early exposure to the gospel with a Chr*st*an family, and all other factors in my life. Each aspect, controlled completely by my Creator, with great purpose.
In college my desire morphed once again into a pr*y*rf*l knowledge that I would go, but an uncertainty as to when it would happen. By this time, going on safari wasn't even on the radar screen, my whole desire for going was to share the g*sp*l with people who had never heard. Although, I have to admit, a safari would have been a nice bonus. So, I went after my junior year to Lome, Togo to work with multiple people groups. While there we were able to travel up country to a small village near Benin to teach scripture to new believers. I will never forget the day we taught on John 1 and the believers responded with joy, "Today, for the first time we know that J*s*s is G*d."
I returned home to finish school and then left for Kenya to work for 2 years as a teacher. I had done so much discipleship work, I was asked to transfer to western Kenya to establish work with the Navigators at several high schools and a university. I had never worked with university students before in ministry, but it completely changed the direction of my life. After returning to the states, I thought the L*rd would use me to help university students prepare for ministry and missions and to instill in them the need to share Chr*st even to the most remote places on earth, and had grown content that this was what He had called me to do. Then in the fall of 2006, I began to sense a shift and discomfort in where the L*rd had me. I committed to pray for the entire year of 2007 to see where the L*rd might be leading me, and by October, the intensity of moving from the L*rd had grown so strong, I could no longer delay, I had to at least see what doors were open for me overseas.
Our ch*rch was considering a partnership with an unreached people group in West Africa and Sharla Martinez and I were sent to check out what our options were and try to lead the ch*rch toward one particular group. As providence goes, the m's that I had served under during my time in West Africa as a summer m were at that conference. I hadn't seen them in 10 years, and they were now the regional directors for West Africa. After a long and productive conversation, the decision was made that I should return to West Africa to disciple women who convert to Chr*st**n*ty. I was asked to wait to make the decision about which people group to work with until I finished my training on the field so that they could sense where the greatest need was at that time.
I agreed to go in November of 2007 and after several delays for various reasons, I finally have everything in order to begin this next phase of my life. There are lots of unknowns, but one thing is certain...this is what I was made for, to serve and honor my G*d no matter where or when He calls. I am amazed and excited that I am able to use the gifts He has given me to serve, at least for this period of my life, in a place He has been preparing me for all of my life. What a great G*d we serve, who has concern for those who have heard the gospel all of their lives and those who have never heard.
I am asked often, "Why are you going?" My answer is simply this, I was born a middle class American girl exposed to the gospel at an early age and raised in a Chr*st**n home, but if I were in their shoes, I would hope someone would care enough to come and tell me the news that could change my eternity and bring hope to my life. How can I say no?
