The Next Step

     I always referred to myself as the wallflower. I was used to people asking if I was holding up the wall I was trying to blend into. There is nothing wrong with a person being shy, but my shyness was born out of insecurity and fear.

I tried to be the good Christian girl, and for the most part, I was. Just don’t ask me to step out of my comfortable bubble. I was very uncomfortable on Sundays when my pastor would preach on Christ’s Great Commission: Go into all the world and preach... (Mark 16:15). My shame and guilt levels rose considerably on those mornings. 

Great. I fail as a Christian. That’s it, God, You might as well kick me out of Your kingdom now. In collegeI felt a terrible weight of responsibility for the souls of my classmates. Not that I did anything about it. Nope, I was terrified to talk with anyone about my faith. Heap on the guilt!

I know I’ve talked about this before, but I’m bringing it up again because God is changing me...Really, He is completely changing me. 

Jesus is ever so patient with me. He brought me into an amazing group of women who understood God’s true nature far better than I did. (He’s not the angry tyrant I had subconsciously made Him out to be.) We had yearly conferences at a ranch in the Colorado mountains, and at one of these in the spring of 2012, I was approached by a lovely, spunky lady with her gray hair in a pixie cut and clothes perfectly accessorized. She told me that she and her husband were directors at a YWAM base nearby and they had a DTS starting up soon. She wanted to know if I was interested. I was somewhat familiar with these acronyms. YWAM is Youth With A Mission, a Christian mission organization that has quite a few bases all around the world. They do DTSs, or Discipleship Training Schools. Students come to a YWAM base and are taught by different Christian speakers the basic truths about God and who they are in Him. This is called the “lecture phase.” After three months of lecture, the students are sent out on a mission trip, or “outreach,” for another 2-3 months to put into practice all they learned. The particular DTS I was told about here was split: lecture phase one summer, then outreach the following summer. This was designed specifically with college students in mind. I happened to be a college student, so it would be perfect. Right? She asked me to think and pray about it. Yes, sure, of course I would pray about it. Right.

I don’t remember exactly what I prayed, but I’m sure it was something like:

     God, You know this kind of thing isn’t for me. A mission school? I’m the wallflower, remember? So thanks, but no thanks.

Beside that, it was April, and the school began the end of May. I barely had time to consider it (as if I would), and the school cost money, which I had no time to raise. I went home and put the uncomfortable proposition behind me and my comfort bubble.

She called to follow up. Of course she would. I missed the call but listened to the message while sitting in my car in the Hobby Lobby parking lot. I heard her cheerful voice tell me that there was no pressure, she was just sending a friendly reminder. Great. I was trying to forget about this, God! Fine. Fine. Fine. As I approached the stop sign outside of the lot, I finally gave it over to God. 

     If You want me to go, I’ll go. I don’t want to, it’s scary, it’s way out of my comfort zone, but fine. IF this is Your idea, I’ll go.

I felt better after that. The weight was off my chest. Phew, that probably meant that I didn’t have to go. When I got home I told my mom about the call. She sympathized with me, because she knew I wasn’t interested. Actually, Mom, it wouldn’t be so bad....Wait, what? The more I thought about it, the more I actually felt excited at the idea. Excited? By the next day I decided I would go. Me, who was scared of the word “mission” was going to a missionary school. Willingly. I made the decision on May first, and left on the 21st. I had no time to raise support, I just went. 

I loved it. I was immediately welcomed into the family by the staff at the base, all of whom lived there full time. We had a small school, only five students. We were ages 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22, me being the oldest. These became some of my closest friends. God taught me so much that summer. We had a different speaker each week. A variety of topics were covered, from the nature of God, to hearing His voice, to spiritual warfare. What stayed with me the most is that God is my Daddy and He loves me unconditionally. I don’t have to work for His love. I could lock myself in a room and speak to no one the rest of my life, and His love for me would be the same as if I crossed oceans to preach to thousands. Wow. He actually takes pleasure in loving me. This was a huge mental shift that I am still only beginning to accept. How can I grow up in church hearing these truths, but never knowing them? I was blind and deaf my whole life.

While there God completely provided for my lecture phase, plus I had some money toward outreach the following summer. He is faithful!

I was nervous about leaving the base and going back home to “normal” life for nine months before outreach. I was literally leaving the mountain for the valley. Would I fall back into my old thought patterns? Would I give in to guilt and fear? Occasionally, I did. Yet I also grew. God is amazing. He used that time we had back in school or work to draw myself and my teammates (the other students) to Him. And then came outreach.

This summer, from the beginning of June to the end of July 2013, we were in Vietnam. I wish I could write more about it here, but I’m already reaching novel proportions with this post. God used our time there to stretch and mold us. It was good. It was hard. Sometimes it was boring. It was an adventure. It took us into situations that were beyond our abilities and into circumstances that broke our hearts. God filled us with love for the people. Honestly, they reached out to us just as much or more than we reached out to them. God is moving in that place.

God has filled me with a new confidence. He has put in my heart an excitement and a hope for the future. Coming home from Vietnam, I had no plans. I had graduated from my university in May, and I was through with my DTS. I had no commitments. I was playing with a few ideas, including California and Scotland. Where do You want me, God? About three days after we got back, we were still at the base, and I started to think a little more seriously about joining staff right there. It had crossed my mind before. I loved it there, but previously I hadn’t felt right about it one way or the other. But now I started to pray. About an hour later I told Jordan and Taylor, two of my girlfriends on the team, that I was going to pray about it. Wow, saying it out loud made it sound so official. About an hour after that I got out of the shower, looked at Jordan, and told her, “I’m joining staff.” I was reeling from my decision, but I knew it was right. 

I am still amazed at what God has done in me. I not only went on a mission trip, but I am also joining a mission organization and living there full time. I will even have to raise support to live there (which I do not enjoy) because the staff live there as volunteers. I have become a missionary.

I am so excited! I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be. My plan is to help out wherever I am needed. The base needs constant upkeep and help in the kitchen, and gets plenty of visitors, even in the winter. While I am there I will keep up with my artwork, and, drumroll please..... I am also going to write a novel. This is a project that has been on the back burner since I was 18 and beginning to pursue my art degree. I have no idea how to write a book, but I’ve had this story in my head for 5 years, and it’s time for it to be written.

So there you have it: my YWAM testimony. I didn’t necessarily plan for this to be a YWAM promotional ad. This is simply where God placed me and the people He used to change me. Is it the only viable Christian mission organization? Nope. Would I recommend it to you? Absolutely. As for now, I need to finish packing. It is Friday, and I drive two hours to my new home on Sunday. I have almost no money and very little to my name, but that hasn’t stopped God before. I am slowly learning to trust Him--my faithful Daddy.