If you ask any of my friends, one of the things I'm best known for is my ridiculous stories. It's not just that I'm a gifted story-teller, but I genuinely have the most ridiculous things happen to me on a semi-regular basis. So if the story of how I became a missionary lacked one of those stories, well, we could probably assume that it wasn't actually my life. So here is my crazy story. It's how I got the courage and confidence to turn in my application.
It was mid-October. I had prayed up quite a bit at this point and was fairly certain God was calling me into missions. However I liken myself to Gideon at this point. I even think I recited his story back to God one time when I was praying: "You know God, I remember that guy Gideon of yours. He asked for that silly sign with the fleece and you did it to confirm his calling. You wouldn't mind throwing me a bone like that would you?" And this was one of those prayers although I meant, I didn't really know that God would answer. Because it seems too much to ask a sign of Him, the Almighty God of the Universe.
I was at a retreat at a camp with my college group, Standing in the Gap. We were having an hour of alone time with God. The night before I had really wanted to canoe and almost took a group to the middle of the lake but we couldn't find any paddles in the dark. This desire still burned into me so I decided I'd grab a canoe and meet God "upon the waters" if you will. I paddled all the way across to an island that was at the other side. It was windy and wavy and the journey was hard, but I had this determination. If God wanted me to work, I was going to work for Him. I'd strive, I'd labor as long as I could be close to His heart. Throughout this process, I found myself thinking even though the road to becoming a missionary would be a hard one, it would be worth it as long as I could be close to His heart. At the other side, I stopped. I read a Psalm. Then I decided to head back so I'd be back before the hour was up and people started worrying (since it's so much harder to predict travel time in canoe).
But more than ever, here is where my adventure really started. Remember the wind and the waves? Well, maybe on my way out I should have paid a little more attention to just how windy it was. As I tried to paddle back the wind was so strong, I could make no progress against it. After 20 minutes of relentless paddling, I was about 15 feet from where I started. My arms were already getting close to worn out, because of how hard I had to paddle. And I had about 90% left of the lake to go. Obviously it was time to revise my plan a little.
What I decided next was I would just paddle to the nearest shore. I would need to ditch the canoe but we could always walk around the lake and go back for it. And I would at least be able to follow the lake back to the camp. After a bit of struggling, I got to a dock by the shore. It was at this point I realized I had no rope to tie my canoe up. Okay, time to revise the plan again because I'm not losing a canoe on these people. Nearby I saw a pile of logs scattered in the water. I decided if I jammed the canoe in there it would at least not run away on me. So with my expert canoeing skills, I jammed it.
Unfortunately I was still about 10 feet from shore and I couldn't tell how deep the water was. Nor did I really want to wade in water anyway, since it was October in Michigan. It was then I noticed these weird fungus-y lily pads leading up to the shore. I have never seen something like it before and I doubt I will ever see something like them again. But God was providing for me that day. I stepped on each lily pad and although I sank a little, and sometimes I lost my footing and fell off, I got to shore a lot less wet than I could have been. It was during that ritual God spoke to my heart this message though, "Kacie, you say you want to adventure with me, but you forget something. It's my adventure. I get to define the terms. It won't always be pleasant or easy. But at least, we'll get to be together. But remember my adventure, my terms."
To recap, I was now exhausted from canoeing. I was almost wet up to my waist from wading through the lily pads. In front of me was one of the steepest hills I have ever seen. Seriously it was almost straight up. I had no idea, in my state, how I could ever climb it without just slipping and falling back into the lake. So I walked alongside it for a while, knowing eventually I would have to climb but looking for the ideal spot. All this time I was also having some pretty heavy, inner-dialogue with God going on. I was probably complaining more than I should, but I was also acknowledging how desperate I was for His help even in this next step. And marveling at some of the ways He had provided and lead me this far. It was as I was marveling that I saw quite the sight on the side of that hill. At one part, there were almost 20 fallen trees arranged in a perfectly linear fashion leading up the hill. Just like a staircase. So I went for it. I ran up this staircase and behind me these trees crumbled. I felt like Indiana Jones. But I know that staircase, those trees that had fallen, was something God had put there just to show me how He provides for me. God, the provider, gets another point. Which is good because going into missions one of the biggest things that could have stopped me was not trusting in God's provision.
I now started following the edge of the lake back to camp. From my understanding of lakes, I knew that as long as I followed the edge I wouldn't get lost. But then I hit it. Embedded on the side of the lake, which I couldn't see before, was about a 30 foot channel. There was no way I could cross it. I figured it maybe went just a little into the land and I could go around, but after searching there was no luck with that. So I began to ask God for help again. In my desperation, I started knocking on the doors of houses looking for directions at the very least. But alas, the whole area was filled with summer homes and being mid October, they were out of commission for the season.
Finally I saw them. A little old man and lady raking their yard. Thanking God, I went up to them the cold, shivering, wet pitiful mess I was and asked for directions on how to get to camp. The old man let out a little laugh as he told me it was about 8 miles to get to the bridge that connected the two sides. Eight miles! Thankfully he took one look up and down me before offering a ride. The man and I drove back in his truck. I shared with him my adventure, my predicament, and the things I had been thinking about that afternoon. But more importantly I was able to listen about his grandchildren, his life, his hopes and dreams. That ride became such a blessed part of the adventure. I had not only needed God's help that day, I had needed others to bless me with their generosity and God had put this man there for that purpose. I know the same thing is necessary in my ministry, but this reminds me it's a blessing from God for both of us and I need to allow the body to bless me and look to bless them in return. And something that was especially cool was his wife and him
had only come up that weekend to close up the cabin for the winter. Talk
about God's provision.
I had arrived safely back at camp. And seeing God's provision, His goodness, His faithfulness, and hearing without a shadow of a doubt His call, I knew I was now ready. To trust Him, to trust others, to bless and to be blessed. But most importantly to follow Him wherever He lead, even if that was into missions.
To my friends: Life with God is supposed to be an adventure. It's supposed to be exciting and real...and you're supposed to be in over your head at times. But there's great joy in doing that adventure with God, in following His voice where He calls, and even stepping out into the waters amongst the wind and waves as long as you're with Him. I pray we'd all learn to say as Moses did: "If Your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here" (Exodus 33:15) and choose only to adventure with our Lord and Savior.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
How I became a Missionary: Following my Gut and God's Confirmation
I never planned on being a missionary. I mean until the last few years when I met a few real live ones, I didn't even think they came from real normal people. I figured God just kept some special ones on reserve like He used to with the Levites. And honestly if you told little freshman in college Kacie that she would have earned her degree to go work as a missionary in another country for free, she would have laughed at you. So how did I end up leaving college as a missionary teacher in the Philippines? Glad you asked. Here's where that story picks up (I started it in my blog post from the day before).
In the beginning of September, I was talking to one of my good camp friends on the phone. As we were discussing our futures that were soon dawning upon us as we both are approaching graduation in May, she mentioned to me that I might want to look into a mission organization called TeachBeyond. A friend of hers had recently gone to Africa through this mission agency. She explained that with my love for adventure, ministry and teaching this could be a cool opportunity. This idea intrigued me at the very least. To humor my friend I agreed to check it out.
I looked at the website but wasn't satisfied with the amount of information given to me. So I just sent a simple email inquiring for more information. When I got an overenthusiastic email back from a lady at the agency the next day, I was overwhelmed. They didn't just want to give me information, they wanted to recruit me right then and there! They even gave me a list of some schools that were looking for math teachers! This might seem really exciting to some, but for the commit-a-phob in me, I needed to back up. It felt like when you first meet someone and they're just too into you. But there was something about this agency that I really did seem to like as I learned more. And as I browsed websites of the potential schools the agency lady sent me, one in particular stood out to me. Faith Academy in the Philippines. For some reason the website just caught my eye and gave me this feeling as I looked at it. It's the only one I kept going back to. And the Philippines reminded me of Haiti, the place I had earlier decided I could live in someday. The Philippines is full of poverty, so I can help in practical ways, and is a tropical island, which is a definite plus for someone like me who can barely survive these cold Michigan winters. Yet I wasn't even sure that I wanted to be a missionary at this point.
So I prayed. I talked to those close to me to see what they thought. Although everyone had somewhat different ways of saying why, every single person that knew me well said that this sounds like exactly the sort of thing that I would want to do. I talked to my pastor. He said it sounded like and amazing opportunity, but gave me other opportunities to look into. So I started doing my research and homework. And prayed more. But as I looked into each opportunity, I noticed there was just not the same feeling when I looked at these agencies and volunteer opportunities. (Looking back I know that feeling was the Holy Spirit.) And realistically I still had my original plan that I could turn to: graduate and get a real job at a school here in the States. But as the weeks passed, I couldn't seem to imagine myself doing anything but working at this little school in the Philippines and teaching with this agency. The normal life I once dreamed of now started to seem like taking the easy way out.
It took a lot of courage to finally fill out my application, but that story is so long and so insane I figured it deserved a post of its own. (Stay tuned in the next few days for that epic adventure.) So let's skip ahead. I interviewed with the TeachBeyond, got accepted, and got my first email of a school expressing interest in an interview a few short days later. Faith Academy in the Philippines. This new email meant things were getting more real every moment. When I first got it, I freaked out. Although I knew how much I had liked this school, I knew that even more I wanted to be where God wanted me.
So I prayed if that's where God wanted me, He would give me peace about it. About 10 minutes after I prayed that, I got a message back from one of the girls on my prayer team saying that she was so excited that I had heard back from Faith. In fact, she said she had been to the Philippines a few years ago on a missions trip and they set up a medical clinic in that exact school and she raved on about how fantastic it was. Talk about confirmation. But God said, "No, child just wait. I have more." That week on Wednesday I was running a worship night that Standing in the Gap put on. I was advised after doing my part and kicking things off to just stand in the back and make sure everything was running smoothly. Yet 20 minutes in, I saw two girls relatively new to our group kind of just looking around. I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to go talk to them. So I did. Eventually I saw the one girl's Bible which was thick papers and made some lame joke about how there was so much paper in there that she must be adding her own books to the Bible. She laughed, "No, these are just letters from the child I sponsor....in the Philippines." Oh, in the Philippines, interesting. In fact although none of these people knew my prospective plans, the Philippines came up in probably 5 different conversations in the week. And I don't know about you, but foreign countries rarely come up in my everyday conversations, let alone the same one over and over. By the end of the week, I knew that this was all God confirming in my ear that this was exactly where He wanted to be.
So I applied. I interviewed. I got the job. And now I'm on to the next part of the journey, the part that goes so beyond me: support-raising. This is the part that will stretch my faith, increase my need to rely on the body of believers (something Christ intends for all of us), and will really just be a journey of its own. I'd love for you all to join me on this journey so we can work together to expand God's kingdom around the world, learn to trust in God's provision, and learn to give ourselves fully and sacrificially to God's work. I want to learn with you, grow with you, bless you and allow you to bless me. I'll keep updates going through this blog and through monthly newsletters, and would love to contact each of you personally about how you can partner with me in this God-given journey. But mostly, I can't wait to see what the Lord does through us.
Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
In the beginning of September, I was talking to one of my good camp friends on the phone. As we were discussing our futures that were soon dawning upon us as we both are approaching graduation in May, she mentioned to me that I might want to look into a mission organization called TeachBeyond. A friend of hers had recently gone to Africa through this mission agency. She explained that with my love for adventure, ministry and teaching this could be a cool opportunity. This idea intrigued me at the very least. To humor my friend I agreed to check it out.
I looked at the website but wasn't satisfied with the amount of information given to me. So I just sent a simple email inquiring for more information. When I got an overenthusiastic email back from a lady at the agency the next day, I was overwhelmed. They didn't just want to give me information, they wanted to recruit me right then and there! They even gave me a list of some schools that were looking for math teachers! This might seem really exciting to some, but for the commit-a-phob in me, I needed to back up. It felt like when you first meet someone and they're just too into you. But there was something about this agency that I really did seem to like as I learned more. And as I browsed websites of the potential schools the agency lady sent me, one in particular stood out to me. Faith Academy in the Philippines. For some reason the website just caught my eye and gave me this feeling as I looked at it. It's the only one I kept going back to. And the Philippines reminded me of Haiti, the place I had earlier decided I could live in someday. The Philippines is full of poverty, so I can help in practical ways, and is a tropical island, which is a definite plus for someone like me who can barely survive these cold Michigan winters. Yet I wasn't even sure that I wanted to be a missionary at this point.
So I prayed. I talked to those close to me to see what they thought. Although everyone had somewhat different ways of saying why, every single person that knew me well said that this sounds like exactly the sort of thing that I would want to do. I talked to my pastor. He said it sounded like and amazing opportunity, but gave me other opportunities to look into. So I started doing my research and homework. And prayed more. But as I looked into each opportunity, I noticed there was just not the same feeling when I looked at these agencies and volunteer opportunities. (Looking back I know that feeling was the Holy Spirit.) And realistically I still had my original plan that I could turn to: graduate and get a real job at a school here in the States. But as the weeks passed, I couldn't seem to imagine myself doing anything but working at this little school in the Philippines and teaching with this agency. The normal life I once dreamed of now started to seem like taking the easy way out.
It took a lot of courage to finally fill out my application, but that story is so long and so insane I figured it deserved a post of its own. (Stay tuned in the next few days for that epic adventure.) So let's skip ahead. I interviewed with the TeachBeyond, got accepted, and got my first email of a school expressing interest in an interview a few short days later. Faith Academy in the Philippines. This new email meant things were getting more real every moment. When I first got it, I freaked out. Although I knew how much I had liked this school, I knew that even more I wanted to be where God wanted me.
So I prayed if that's where God wanted me, He would give me peace about it. About 10 minutes after I prayed that, I got a message back from one of the girls on my prayer team saying that she was so excited that I had heard back from Faith. In fact, she said she had been to the Philippines a few years ago on a missions trip and they set up a medical clinic in that exact school and she raved on about how fantastic it was. Talk about confirmation. But God said, "No, child just wait. I have more." That week on Wednesday I was running a worship night that Standing in the Gap put on. I was advised after doing my part and kicking things off to just stand in the back and make sure everything was running smoothly. Yet 20 minutes in, I saw two girls relatively new to our group kind of just looking around. I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to go talk to them. So I did. Eventually I saw the one girl's Bible which was thick papers and made some lame joke about how there was so much paper in there that she must be adding her own books to the Bible. She laughed, "No, these are just letters from the child I sponsor....in the Philippines." Oh, in the Philippines, interesting. In fact although none of these people knew my prospective plans, the Philippines came up in probably 5 different conversations in the week. And I don't know about you, but foreign countries rarely come up in my everyday conversations, let alone the same one over and over. By the end of the week, I knew that this was all God confirming in my ear that this was exactly where He wanted to be.
So I applied. I interviewed. I got the job. And now I'm on to the next part of the journey, the part that goes so beyond me: support-raising. This is the part that will stretch my faith, increase my need to rely on the body of believers (something Christ intends for all of us), and will really just be a journey of its own. I'd love for you all to join me on this journey so we can work together to expand God's kingdom around the world, learn to trust in God's provision, and learn to give ourselves fully and sacrificially to God's work. I want to learn with you, grow with you, bless you and allow you to bless me. I'll keep updates going through this blog and through monthly newsletters, and would love to contact each of you personally about how you can partner with me in this God-given journey. But mostly, I can't wait to see what the Lord does through us.
Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Monday, January 5, 2015
How I Was Called Into Missions: Seeds Planted Long Ago
First off surprise! I'm going to be a missionary! That's pretty neat!
If you haven't been kept updated and this has come completely out of the blue, my apologies, I've been keeping a lot of things on the DL for a while but I promise over the next few days I will divulge to you in a series of blogs my full story. Because never once did I expect to be a missionary.
Before I get too far let me explain a little about the work God has called me to do. I work with a mission agency called TeachBeyond. TeachBeyond specifically partners teachers with cooperating schools that serve primarily the children of missionaries. For more information on TeachBeyond, check out their website at www.teachbeyond.org. TeachBeyond helped partner me with Faith International Academy in Davao City (Philippines). I will be serving there primarily as a high school math teacher. For more information on Faith, check out their website at www.fia.edu.ph. Or instead of visiting those websites, just call/text/message me and I would love to explain things more in detail.
But what I would like to explain in detail is my call, because it's one of those things that has God's hand all over it and I just want to make sure He gets the credit and praise due to Him for the amazing way He has made this calling of mine evident to myself and those around me.
But first I want to take a step back and rewind. Because although I didn't know this until now, this journey really started 3 years ago. Three years ago I accepted a job at Lake Ann Camp as a counselor. At the time, it seemed just like a fun summer gig. I had no idea what I was getting into. I could rave and rant about how that summer forever changed my life and anyone who knew me before that summer and saw me again after that summer could testify to that fact. It was there that I first really fell in love with the Lord, saw how someone could even live out that relationship with Him in a way that goes so beyond Bible studies and Sundays, saw that my life had something to offer, and developed a passion for serving God and those around me. I could speak of that summer forever recounting how God revealed Himself to me and the stories of my precious campers and how each of them shaped my life in little and big ways. Ask me about it. Seriously there's almost nothing I love talking about more than my summers at camp. But there's one story that I had no idea how it impacted and shaped me until now and that's the one I want to share here.
It was week one, my first summer counseling. There was a constant awareness in my head of how much I didn't know, how much I didn't belong in this place with people that knew God so intimately when I felt like a spiritual baby in comparison. But here I was with five high school girls in my cabin. Who needed healing. Who needed love. Who had big dreams for God. One of those girls in particular really inspired me. We'll call her Shannon. Shannon shared with me her dream of going into the field of sports missions, a place where you could teach the principles of the Gospel through training others in sports camps. As she talked about it, my heart pounded with two thoughts. Firstly I sincerely hoped I could learn to love God as much as it was apparent she did and that my dreams for Him would become as big as hers. Secondly, I could use sports (which I love love love) as a way to serve God? Like this is something I could make a job of and explore the world with? That's so cool. Please tell me more. Shannon and I talked about this quite a bit that week and at the end, I told her if it was the Lord's plan, I'd go pave the way for her and someday we could work together at these sport missions camps. But while the idea seemed really neat, there was that reality in the back of my head that that was probably never really going to happen.
But for some reason, the idea has stuck with me for the last 3 years. I'd see Shannon return to camp each summer after and we'd still talk about it. But I knew that I belonged at the school I was at, not only serving in my campus ministry, but also studying to be a teacher. I knew that that position was something that God wanted to use. They were just two realities that seemed so inconsistent to me....until TeachBeyond came into the picture. Now I have the opportunity to put together my talent of teaching with discipling and missions, which I could not be more ecstatic about.
What blows my mind though is that this seed of a dream I never thought of before was planted 3 years before I even heard of TeachBeyond. God knew the time it would take for my heart to grow fond of this idea and how it needed to grow in me. So He put a camper in my cabin who had dreams that would later inspire mine. Because He's God and He does things like that.
But that's not where God quit planting seeds. Flashback to later that year (so 2 and 1/2 years ago) when I went on my first and only mission trip to Haiti. A group of my college friends and I went down over our spring break to help build a church. While we worked really hard each day, each night something happened that fascinated me. We lost electricity. So we'd light lanterns and enjoy telling each other stories, playing card games, and just being together. And anyone who knows me well knows how I hate the fast-paced, technology-consumed American way of life so this new possibility became fascinatingly beautiful to me. That there really did exist somewhere in the world that I could just leave and escape it all. But that wasn't what sold me. The event that sold me that I would someday love to return to Haiti or someplace like it was on the last day as we rode across the countryside in the back of a pickup. It was here that I saw a land 3 years after a tornado, with millions of people still displaced. And I knew that I wanted to go to places like that where I could help people in a physical way as well as teach them (because education is the key to improving any economy). But I had no idea how or if this would come about. But God did.
Now on the verge of being a missionary, I look back and smile at how God started planting seeds long before I had any interest in an idea like working at a school in the Philippines as a missionary. And without the planting of these little seeds, I would never have jumped on board with this new idea. But God slowly but surely tugged at my heart and planted ideas and dreams in my mind that were so unlike my own. I think that maybe those are the ideas and dreams that we need to pay extra special attention to. And what amazes me is how God starts a process in us long before we even know He's up to anything. Think of where you're at right now. What has God done to bring you to that point? Or how might He be planting seeds in your life now for ways in which He wants to use you?
If you haven't been kept updated and this has come completely out of the blue, my apologies, I've been keeping a lot of things on the DL for a while but I promise over the next few days I will divulge to you in a series of blogs my full story. Because never once did I expect to be a missionary.
Before I get too far let me explain a little about the work God has called me to do. I work with a mission agency called TeachBeyond. TeachBeyond specifically partners teachers with cooperating schools that serve primarily the children of missionaries. For more information on TeachBeyond, check out their website at www.teachbeyond.org. TeachBeyond helped partner me with Faith International Academy in Davao City (Philippines). I will be serving there primarily as a high school math teacher. For more information on Faith, check out their website at www.fia.edu.ph. Or instead of visiting those websites, just call/text/message me and I would love to explain things more in detail.
But what I would like to explain in detail is my call, because it's one of those things that has God's hand all over it and I just want to make sure He gets the credit and praise due to Him for the amazing way He has made this calling of mine evident to myself and those around me.
But first I want to take a step back and rewind. Because although I didn't know this until now, this journey really started 3 years ago. Three years ago I accepted a job at Lake Ann Camp as a counselor. At the time, it seemed just like a fun summer gig. I had no idea what I was getting into. I could rave and rant about how that summer forever changed my life and anyone who knew me before that summer and saw me again after that summer could testify to that fact. It was there that I first really fell in love with the Lord, saw how someone could even live out that relationship with Him in a way that goes so beyond Bible studies and Sundays, saw that my life had something to offer, and developed a passion for serving God and those around me. I could speak of that summer forever recounting how God revealed Himself to me and the stories of my precious campers and how each of them shaped my life in little and big ways. Ask me about it. Seriously there's almost nothing I love talking about more than my summers at camp. But there's one story that I had no idea how it impacted and shaped me until now and that's the one I want to share here.
It was week one, my first summer counseling. There was a constant awareness in my head of how much I didn't know, how much I didn't belong in this place with people that knew God so intimately when I felt like a spiritual baby in comparison. But here I was with five high school girls in my cabin. Who needed healing. Who needed love. Who had big dreams for God. One of those girls in particular really inspired me. We'll call her Shannon. Shannon shared with me her dream of going into the field of sports missions, a place where you could teach the principles of the Gospel through training others in sports camps. As she talked about it, my heart pounded with two thoughts. Firstly I sincerely hoped I could learn to love God as much as it was apparent she did and that my dreams for Him would become as big as hers. Secondly, I could use sports (which I love love love) as a way to serve God? Like this is something I could make a job of and explore the world with? That's so cool. Please tell me more. Shannon and I talked about this quite a bit that week and at the end, I told her if it was the Lord's plan, I'd go pave the way for her and someday we could work together at these sport missions camps. But while the idea seemed really neat, there was that reality in the back of my head that that was probably never really going to happen.
But for some reason, the idea has stuck with me for the last 3 years. I'd see Shannon return to camp each summer after and we'd still talk about it. But I knew that I belonged at the school I was at, not only serving in my campus ministry, but also studying to be a teacher. I knew that that position was something that God wanted to use. They were just two realities that seemed so inconsistent to me....until TeachBeyond came into the picture. Now I have the opportunity to put together my talent of teaching with discipling and missions, which I could not be more ecstatic about.
What blows my mind though is that this seed of a dream I never thought of before was planted 3 years before I even heard of TeachBeyond. God knew the time it would take for my heart to grow fond of this idea and how it needed to grow in me. So He put a camper in my cabin who had dreams that would later inspire mine. Because He's God and He does things like that.
But that's not where God quit planting seeds. Flashback to later that year (so 2 and 1/2 years ago) when I went on my first and only mission trip to Haiti. A group of my college friends and I went down over our spring break to help build a church. While we worked really hard each day, each night something happened that fascinated me. We lost electricity. So we'd light lanterns and enjoy telling each other stories, playing card games, and just being together. And anyone who knows me well knows how I hate the fast-paced, technology-consumed American way of life so this new possibility became fascinatingly beautiful to me. That there really did exist somewhere in the world that I could just leave and escape it all. But that wasn't what sold me. The event that sold me that I would someday love to return to Haiti or someplace like it was on the last day as we rode across the countryside in the back of a pickup. It was here that I saw a land 3 years after a tornado, with millions of people still displaced. And I knew that I wanted to go to places like that where I could help people in a physical way as well as teach them (because education is the key to improving any economy). But I had no idea how or if this would come about. But God did.
Now on the verge of being a missionary, I look back and smile at how God started planting seeds long before I had any interest in an idea like working at a school in the Philippines as a missionary. And without the planting of these little seeds, I would never have jumped on board with this new idea. But God slowly but surely tugged at my heart and planted ideas and dreams in my mind that were so unlike my own. I think that maybe those are the ideas and dreams that we need to pay extra special attention to. And what amazes me is how God starts a process in us long before we even know He's up to anything. Think of where you're at right now. What has God done to bring you to that point? Or how might He be planting seeds in your life now for ways in which He wants to use you?
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