The First Act

Friday, Aug. 6, 2010

8:32 am

            I was supposed to be journaling from long before my departure, but of course, I didn't. So, now I'm going to tell everything that happened leading up to my departure to Bangkok, Thailand.

            In all honesty, my story starts when I was in seventh grade and first heard about Student Missionaries from my teacher who had been a student missionary when she was in college. I come from a missionary family; however, I was never a missionary kid. Both of my parents were. My mom was born and raised in Malawi, Africa for the first 12 years of her childhood. My dad had lived in Chile, Palau, and Canada. I've always loved traveling and always wished I'd been able to grow up in the environment my parents had. Since seventh grade, my plan was to be a Student Missionary when I got to college.

            Six years later, after speaking about mission work with my advisor in our first meeting, I decided I would go after completing my sophomore year at SAU. Sophomore year came and I became a little distracted from my goal. I completed the paper work around October or November. I wanted to do something that involved filming, since I knew I couldn't teach or do anything medical. I searched for calls and the only one I found was for Adventist Frontier Missions. It involved traveling all over Europe and Africa, and by the end of my term I would have shot and edited two shows for the Hope Channel. It sounded amazing, even though I felt under-qualified. It sounded like just the thing I wanted to do, so I applied for it.

            Among the mass amounts of paper work was a commitment form. In summary, it stated that I would promise to commit the next term to God's work and do everything possible to follow through without turning back. I agreed with it completely, so I signed it without much thought. However, a minor detail that would soon change everything was that at the very end of the form it said "...with AFM".

            Everything was in order and I was just now waiting for acceptance to the call. I was driving back to Southern after Christmas break, when my dad called me and said that Pastor Doug, from Thailand, had called our house. He had heard I was looking for video work and wanted to speak with me. My dad told me that even though I had already applied for this other call, I should get back to him and find out more. That night, I checked my email. AFM had accepted me for their call! I tried to get in touch with Pastor Doug that night. The next morning I was able to talk with him on skype. I felt that that his timing was providential, especially since I hadn't even looked in to Thailand. I knew it was where God wanted me to be.

            I e-mailed AFM the next week, saying I appreciated their acceptance, but I would need some more time to pray before accepting the call, because I felt God might be steering me in a different direction. The next morning I got a phone call. It was a woman from AFM. She told me she was sorry to read my e-mail. She brought up the commitment form that I had signed. She said that I had made a promise to AFM and to God and that it was a bond as sacred as marriage. I couldn't believe they weren't supporting my decision to go where I felt God was leading me. After she hung up, I called my dad immediately. When he answered, I couldn't even talk because I was crying (a rare occurrence). I finally got it out and he couldn't believe they had told me that.

            After more prayer and thinking about my situation, I wanted some kind of sign that God really did want me in Thailand. I prayed for Him to give me something that next weekend. I received nothing that made me feel that either call was the right choice. Sunday night I prayed that God show me something that I couldn't miss within the next 24 hours, so I could give AFM my final decision. On Monday, I received an e-mail from AFM's human resources. It was a lot more of what the lady had told me on the phone, along with bible references on how I was making the wrong choice. After reading the e-mail I said "Thank-you God!" and went to the SM office, where Rebeca called AFM for me to inform them that I would be going to Thailand instead of going with them.

            I know without a doubt that I made the right choice. God has done so many things to help me get here. SVAD was working on the possibility of shooting a feature film during the semester that I would be gone. The chance to work on a feature is every film major's dream. It was something that I was really going to be sorry to miss, but I had decided long ago that this would be the time I would be an SM, so I wasn't going to quit. I also got into a relationship, which I had planned to end before I left. I soon realized, that things I felt I was sacrificing to go and to God's work were starting to fall through. The feature ended up not happening and my relationship ended a month before I left.

            Towards the end of the school year, I started feeling depressed about missing the next year with all the people I had grown to love at Southern. Some of them would graduate and I could never see them again. Others would get to work on amazing projects that I would miss out on. When I got back there would be a lot of unfamiliar faces that my friends would already be close to. People would ask me if I was excited about going to Bangkok and I couldn't honestly tell them I was.

            School ended and I said goodbye to Southern. A few weeks later, I started work at Camp Kulaqua. I had heard I would be working with two guys that had been to Bangkok and worked with Pastor Doug as well. When I got there, I met Ricky and Brandan. They were so excited that I was going to Bangkok to work with Pastor Doug. They told me all kinds of stories and showed me pictures and videos. By the time camp was over, I couldn't wait to come to Thailand!

            I've seen God's hand at work just in the journey of getting here. I'm so excited to see what He has in store now that I am here!