How Did We Get Here?!?

So here I am, 25 years old, leaving a job that I love to move to another country. A country that I've visited twice for a grand total of 10 days, and where I don't speak a word of the language. Am I crazy? That's a fair question. And well, probably. But there's a little more to the story, so I'll rewind a few years and catch you up to speed.

To be honest, I don't remember ever having one of those moments. You know, the ones you hear about when people wake up in the middle of the night and just know that God is calling them right then and there to move to Africa? Well, that's not how my story went. Instead, I can only estimate that I think it started sometime during my sophomore year of college.

During the spring of my sophomore year, I was preparing for a summer mission trip to Russia, where my team would serve and share the gospel in orphanages near a town called Velikiy Novgorod. At the time, I was also taking a Global Studies class in which the phrase "God's heart for the nations" was used several times per class period (maybe I should have seen it coming, considering I chose a university that identifies itself as "a university dedicated to the great commission"). Sometime during that semester, I began to feel a tug on my heart: a tug that, when I sat my parents down a few months later to talk about it, I could only describe as a feeling that missions was going to play a bigger role in my life than I knew yet.

A short synopsis of the 5 years since that semester (because I know you don't want to still be reading this in 3 hours):

Summer 2012 - Present: Took several more opportunities to join short term mission teams to various areas of the world

Summer 2013: Studied abroad and realized that I love the process of making a foreign place home

Spring 2014: Applied for several jobs teaching overseas as I graduated, but ended up turning them all down as I prayed over them one-by-one

Fall 2014: Took a job in full-time student ministry in Bakersfield, California, and ended up learning more here than I ever could have imagined or planned. Completely fell in love with my students and church family

Spring 2017: Took a team of students on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic over spring break

Over the past 5 years, a few opportunities came up to pursue missions on a longer-term basis, and each time the Lord gave me such a confidence that I was right where He wanted me. It wasn't time. Meanwhile, I could feel my passion for missions growing with each experience. There were times this was frustrating, especially since I mistakenly viewed going overseas as a kind of ultimate act of obedience, like it was some super-human act of faith to go instead of stay. But He made it clear that He wanted me to stay, and so I did.

Then this spring, that all changed. After taking a team of students to the DR with Students International over spring break, I came home excited to jump back into ministry with my students here in Bakersfield. But about a week after returning home, I had the moment. The one where I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep, because I couldn't stop thinking about the amazing ministry I got to witness and the amazing people I had met on this little island in the Caribbean. I chalked it up to jet lag, and tried to go back to sleep. But this happened again the next night. And the next. And it kept happening for the next week until I finally decided I needed to take a bit of time to process these thoughts and pray about it "so I could move on."

So that weekend, I went to my best thinking place: Starbucks (I always do my best thinking with coffee in my hand). As I sat down to pray, I immediately started a little conversation with myself:

"Why do I feel like I need to move on?"

"Well, the Lord already told me 'no.'"

"That was two years ago."

"Yeah, but I'm kind of afraid to ask again. It makes me feel like an obnoxious toddler: 'Can I have it? How about now? Now? What about now?'"

"Do I really think God would be impatient or annoyed with my attempts to be faithful?"

"But it's not really logical... or good timing. I LOVE my job! And my students!" "How often do true steps of faith make complete 'logical' sense?"

"Ummm... ok, self. Touché."

So I began to pray. And I began to read. I read in Judges where God asks Gideon to reduce the size of his (already outnumbered) army from 32,000 to 300. I read in Joshua where God calls Joshua to lead his people- at least 40,000 warriors among them- not into battle, but simply to walk around the city walls of Jericho in silence for a week. I read in Matthew where Jesus calls Peter to come to Him across the waters of Galilee.

None of these options made logical sense. They required faith. So I began to pray a different prayer. This is an excerpt from my journal entry that day:

April 23, 2017

I often catch myself saying things like, "I'm really passionate about..." or "I really have a heart for..." But is it enough to simply "have a heart" for something? What if Peter had just "felt passionately" that he could walk across the water to Jesus, but he never got out of the boat? What if Gideon had "really had a heart" that God could fight his battles, but he never gave marching orders? What about Joshua? Or David?

Faith is calling. Will I move? Take that first step over the side of the boat? Give my marching orders? When is the last time I acted truly on faith? Not on carefully calculated plans, not on everyone else's potential opinions, not on meticulously overthought pro-con lists, but actually on faith? When it didn't make sense, but His voice whispered, "Come"?

Lord, call me. I'm ready to answer. I'm ready to step out of the boat. Ask me to come.

Well, He called alright (sort of... I guess it was more like He emailed). Later that week, I opened my inbox to a message from the assistant director of the Students International base where we had visited; it was completely out of the blue and said something along the lines of, "Hey Sammy, I'm not sure if you'd ever consider it, but we would love to have you come back full-time if you ever felt like the Lord was calling you to missions. Just something to think about if you haven't before. Hope you're having a great week!"

I. Kid. You. Not.

So long story short: I made some phone calls, set up some meetings, asked a whole lot of questions, sent a whole lot of emails, prayed endlessly, and sought out advice from some very wise people in my life. And at the beginning of June, I officially accepted an internship with Students International in women's social work. I have so much to learn this year, and I can't wait to jump in! Thank you all for joining me on this journey. Following Jesus can be quite the adventure!

I have already written a novel, so I will stop here. Next up, an update on travel plans and support raising!

#travel #DominicanRepublic #missions #StudentsInternational #story #moving #faith