I have felt a calling towards the mission field since I was in Jr. High. My church is big on encouraging homegrown missionaries. We currently have people from our congregation who have committed their lives to living and working in places like Mozambique, China, and places throughout South America. Missions is a topic that comes up quite a bit at my church. Our Jr. High and High School youth groups go on many mission trips throughout the year. My first trip was to McAllen, TX, just a few miles from the Mexico border. It was an experience that absolutely changed me and really opened my eyes to what God wanted me to do with my life. Before then the poverty stricken and the downtrodden had been images in books and characters in movies, but for the first time these people were real to me, and I could feel God telling me that I needed to do something about it. I continued to go on every trip I could, ranging from working in New Orleans after Katrina to painting houses in a nearby town. My freshman year in High School I went to Casa de la Esperanza, an orphanage in Mexico, and I had the same feeling I did in 7th grade, but this time it was much stronger and much more clear. Since that first trip to Mexico I have been back to that orphanage 6 more times, sometimes with groups from church and sometimes on my own. I think God used my experiences there to really drive home that pull I have towards missions. This will actually be the first summer in five years that I have not gone to Casa de la Esperanza, and I’m a little sad that I won’t be able to see all the friends that I have made there, but at the same time I am excited about this trip to India and I feel it is a step forward for me; I know God has something big planned for us over there and I can’t wait to find out what it is 🙂
