Hola mis amigos:
How was I called into the mission field? Wow. I don’t know where to begin. I guess I’ll start by saying, began in junior high. I was at a youth convention and that’s when God called me into the ministry. Of course being the young, immature 13 year old I was, I immediately thought that meant full time youth ministry. Of course, as you already know, I am currently a nursing student. Over the years, God has shown me how everywhere you are is a mission field. God quickly gave me passion for the hurting and dying. And let me tell ya, it’s been a roller coaster ride. However, I want to skip ahead a little bit, or this will get way too long.
Over the years, I have struggled with feeling inferior. What I mean is, in almost every aspect of life I never felt like I was good enough for the job, or there were so many more qualified people. Whether it was academics, music, or a mission’s trip to the jungle. J It really began to drag me down…until this summer. God blessed me with a job in the emergency room in my home town. It was awesome! There were nights when I was wondering, “Why did they hire me? I have had no clinical experience yet.” But I feel that was when the Lord started to work on my heart. He started showing me that He had plans for me, plans that would definitely take me outside of my comfort zone. I just needed to take a step of faith—genuine faith, and just listen to what He wants me to do. So many times I would say, “okay God, I trust you. You’re in control… but only if I can do this…”
So last fall, during a mission’s fair week, I started looking at possible trips for spring break, or over the summer. And to be honest, I found one that I would’ve loved. But then I remembered a few friends who had traveled through Adventures in Missions before, and I decided to keep my mind open to the idea of a 2 month trip. So as I began looking at trips, I was thinking, Africa or Costa Rica. Those would be fun, after all the only mission’s trips I’ve been on have been to central and southern Mexico. But God, in his loving and awesome way, started nagging at my heart. He told me, “I thought you said you were going to trust me?” Talk about a hit to the heart! I quickly began spending more time with God, and one night I found myself just stumbling across the Amazon trip. I cannot even begin to describe the things going through my head. I wasn’t seriously considering it at the time. The jungle? Really? But the more I looked at the trip information, the bigger the spark in my heart grew, that was slowly beginning to burn more. Once again, I began to get the ideas in my head, “Chelsea, you’re not supposed to go here, why would they need you?” But pretty soon, the Holy Spirit just said…”trust me, you say you’ll trust me, how far will you let me take you?” I couldn’t believe it. The next thing I knew, I was beginning the application process.
I believe of few of us have used the same passage, from Jeremiah 29.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
I know that I’m guilty, many times of simply looking at verse 11. But there’s so much more to it if you read a little further. We must seek Him with all our heart. Otherwise, we’re just trying to make our plans fit into His plans. There are so many other verses that have been an encouragement through this process, and I’m sure it’ll get rough. But it’s going to be an awesome journey, and we get to do it together!
Many blessings! -Chels
Wow! Its so funny how, almost the same way you decided to go on this trip, is what happened to me! I had gone to Brazil & Mexico on mission trips and I was sure I didn’t want to go to either central or south America for this trip because I wanted to do something different. I was seriously looking every where for a trip to Africa. I found them, but I didn’t feel at peace about any of them. Then finally I said,”God, I’ve been saying that I’ll go anywhere, but I have been really saying I’ll go anywhere…but not there!” When I finally gave it up to God, I found this trip, and almost instantly it clicked, and I felt at peace with the decision.
By reading what you said, it has firmly shown me that I chose the right thing, and I hope this may help strengthen your decision aswell
I can’t wait to finally meet you and the rest of the team in a couple months! 🙂
God Bless!
Joshua Kaufmann