Throughout my middle & high school years I never had a desire to go on a missions trip. I had people close to me who had gone on missions trips and came back changed and I didn’t know if I was ready for that to be me. I knew that going to a different country would expose my ignorance and comfort and I would come face to face with a need bigger than anything I was capable of filling. I was also scared of the emotional side of it because I knew that emotions fade and I didn’t want to come home passionate and moved by what I had seen but go on living my comfortable, first-world life…so I figured it’d be safer to stay home and kept telling myself “I don’t need that.”
That is until I had the opportunity to go to Managua, Nicaragua in 2012; which led to going to Jacmel, Haiti in August 2013… I was 18, had just graduated High School in May and I remember being overwhelmed with so many questions.
Every time I turned around someone was asking me the same questions I was asking myself and it frustrated me because I didn’t have answers.
I knew God promised to guide me; but when? When would the answers come? Should I go straight to college? What major should I choose? Where should I work? Worries like: “I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life?!?!” occupied my mind.
I am so grateful that my parents were never the ones asking me these questions or putting pressure on me. My dad always said “I don’t even know what I’m doing with the rest of my life!” — he reminded me to walk in faith and not by sight. It was scary because for the first time my life wasn’t mapped out. Can you relate to feeling like you’re stumbling, taking your first “baby steps” out in faith, not sure where they’ll lead and wondering if you’ll be able to walk? .
In the middle of that season I set off on a plane to Haiti….
I learned that one week cannot do much to make a lasting impact on a country but one week can do something immeasurable in one’s heart.
During that week my heart changed. I learned that nothing makes you take your eyes off yourself like being surrounded by children and people who have a hunger in their souls for Jesus. I learned that nothing brings more joy and fulfillment than when we are filled with Christ’s love and then pouring into others as a result … I see how Jesus knew that I need to be there to come face to face with my own selfishness, my own pride, and my own poverty. I learned that I have so much more in common with people across the world than I had ever thought before. I learned that I was desperate for Jesus to soften my heart. My heart was impoverished: I just had material abundance to distract me. My heart was hard and I had been too stubborn to step out of my own world into the hurt, suffering, and need of another’s.
After 1 week in Haiti I knew that I wanted to spend my days pouring into others. I had a passion for serving kids so I came home and applied for a job teaching preschoolers which, to my amazement, I got. I also started taking some Early Childhood Education online classes at my local community college. I learned quickly that life is not easy and although I knew God had opened the door for me to be a teacher it was still hard; but I knew it was worth it. I learned that real life can be monotonous but you can choose gratitude and look for the beauty in the mundane, because it is there: I got to go to a classroom full of kids that my heart loved and I knew that I was where God wanted me.
Then, in 2016, I had the opportunity to go to Haiti again & I wasn’t sure what to expect…
