A year ago if asked what I would be doing after college I would have said, "I am going to be a missionary, and I want to be used in the ministry."
It was foreign field missions for me all the way. I had been to three different continents, seen many different cultures, and loved it. That was the life for me.
Then something changed inside of me. It was almost as if God had taken my love for ministry work and molded it somehow into a different shape.
Like I had taken nails and boarded up "ministry" into a neat little box that fit about two or three jobs: the Pastor, youth pastor, and the missionary. That was ministry.
But God changed this view in my life.
When I spent almost three months in Tanzania, Africa I learned something that acted almost as a marker in my mind. While in Tanzania what I had always thought of as "missions" became "ministry." It became every day life and in the process became less of what "missions" had been in my head.
Now do not get my wrong, I absolutely love missions work. Without the missionary act of sending men and women to speak the Gospel into people's lives I would not be writing this today. But while overseas, I saw problems I see in America: lust, greed, selfishness, hard-hearted people. . . the list could go on and on. I saw the same battles. The only difference was that the people spoke in a different language and wore different clothing. And this began to challenge me.
Then, this past summer, I spent one month in Guyana, South America. And while I greatly enjoyed the trip and saw God work in mighty ways to draw His creation to Him, it only seemed to confirm what was already going on in my heart.
The same sin is present in the lives of Americans, Africans, and South Americans.
I had bound myself to the idea that I was not going to be living in America. I had mentally put a giant X on this country. And when that began to change it scared me. I did not verbalize it.
What changed in me? I began to see America as a mission field. That was something I had never considered before.
What else changed in me? I began to see that in America, as a mission field, there are so many different ways to "do ministry."
God did not call pastors alone to be the ones ministering. We should be ministering daily in whatever "ministry" God has placed us in. Make sense?
That being said, when I graduated college and had returned from a month in South America I was at a loss of what to do, where to go.
The very first person I verbalized my thoughts to about this just so happened to be the one who introduced me to the program I am currently in.
For those of you who do not know, I am in a program called the Fellows Initiative located in Kinston, North Carolina. As part of the program we have an internship, take a seminary class a semester, and live with a family. A great thing for a person like me.
While here I have really been able to see the seed of thought that had been growing in me bloom into an understanding.
For instance, I work at a place called the Gate. It is a community outreach center in downtown Kinston that is Christ-centered and focuses on reaching out to people of low income, mainly the youth. I have a chance to work with girls on Wednesday nights who come to the Girl's Bible study. They all come from broken homes and all need the love of God in their lives. Friday nights is called Open Gate. And is open to teens to come and hang out for a few hours and stay out of trouble. What a great place God has brought me to. It can certainly have its challenging moments, but I love it more for it.
How did I get here? By having an open heart. God uses people who have an open heart and allow Him to lead in what direction He wills. I believe that God burdened my heart for missions work to teach me what I may not have learned otherwise. And I am certain that He will use my heart for the foreign field for His purposes. Whether that means on the foreign field or not, to God be the glory.
