Just in case you were wondering….

Someone asked me the other day, how I ended up here and as I told them the story, I had to smile at the Father’s work in my life to get me here. Believe it or not, my life plan never included going to the African bush and working with goats. I think many people probably see me as a little bit adventurous and we all know how much I love agriculture, but goats and Africa were really never part of the plan. Really. I remember back during my senior year of college when many of my friends were going overseas and I remember how unwilling I was to go and how grateful I was that I wasn’t “called.” I felt that once I realized I wasn’t “called” then I could go on with the rest of my life and not be inconvenienced with such things as Africa. I really tried to broach the topic of going with the Father as little as possible, lest he force me onto a plane to a foreign country that I didn’t want to go to.

Well, did He ever have a little surprise in store for me 🙂 As I started graduate school in Raleigh, I attended a Sunday gathering that put a large emphasis on those people groups in the world that had no one who spoke their language that also knew the Hope of the Father. All of a sudden, I found myself wanting to go overseas and be the one to share with those people. At first, I really didn’t know what to do with this new desire to do the very thing that I had always dreaded being asked to do. As I continued to seek it out and ask the Father, I felt more and more led that this was what I was supposed to do and that this was what I wanted to do for the next two years of my life. I got no supernatural signs or dreams or visions, just a sure calm and peace as I continued to seek it out and walk it out. I am not one that makes big decisions easily (usually I have major freak outs) and not that I didn’t have my share of questions, concerns, etc regarding moving overseas for two years, but the calm that I experienced in making this decision was unlike any other major decision I have ever made. I came back to that same peace and assurance every time I started to question whether this was really what I was supposed to do.

Now, I would be lying to you if I didn’t tell you that during that first week in the village I would have jumped at the first plane ticket home. I very quickly began to doubt everything that had been confirmed to me in the two years prior – sickness, jet lag, and different food will do that to you 🙂 However, once I got over the initial shock of it all, I knew yet again that this is where I am supposed to be for now, whatever that means. As of the 28th, I will have been here one month, but it kind of already feels like I have always been here. As different as things are, they just kind of seem “normal” now – like my life has always been this way.

I am grateful to be here and for the path that the Father led me on to get here. I am also grateful that He didn’t bring me over here kicking and screaming, but changed my heart and placed a desire in me to do what it was that he had for me. I really can’t help but smile when I think back over the past 5 years of my life and what has changed during that time. Anyways, for those of you who have been wondering (and for those who haven’t), all of the above is how I ended up here!