Monday, June 20, 2011

I'm moving to Ecuador

This week has truly been one of the hardest weeks of my 22-year old life. This week I had to make a decision whether or not I was going to give up the comforts of my life for the sake of the gospel. I’ll rewind about two months to when I felt like God was preparing me for a transition coming up. I didn’t know what it was or what He meant but I thought I was ready for whatever it was He was going to throw at me. Two weeks later I got a phone call from a family friend who had been praying for me and had heard about a need for teachers at an orphanage in Ecuador that I had been to. As soon as the words left her mouth I knew that this is what God had meant by a transition and I began to weep. So I prayed a lot and began contacting the orphanage and got conformation that this is where the Lord was leading me. My heart was torn by the decision because even though I would be going on this awesome adventure getting to tell people about Jesus, I knew that I would be leaving my comfortable life of being with my family, friends and my tribe (my high school girls) that I had invested in for the past 2 years and my heart was broken. he truth was, even though teaching at an orphanage in South America had been my dream since I was 16, I didn’t want to go because it wasn’t the timing I wanted. I wanted to be here in Alaska until my tribe finished high school and I finished college. But God had other plans and I wrestled with God for weeks but the most challenging question I’ve ever had to answer, was I going to obey Jesus? God began revealing verses to me that challenged me in a huge way. In Luke 9 Jesus says “anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple,” he continues on saying, “any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” Then I went over to Mark 10 where Jesus talks to the rich young ruler who is asking how he can inherit eternal life and Jesus tells him, “ Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, and follow me.” Jesus was asking me to abandon everything to follow him and I realized that if I didn’t then I couldn’t be His disciple. I realized I had been selfish to ask him to let me stay and that the best thing I could do was to be obedient to his call. I know now that the cost of being a discple of Christ is great but it’s worth it, He’s soo worth it! Once I realized how that, I got super excited about this upcoming expedition. So I am moving to Shell, Ecuador on August 25th to teach at an orphanage called Casa de Fe (House of Faith) which provides 24-hour care of abandoned children, especially children with special needs.