First Year Missionary Testimonies
Radical discipleship for college students
wanting to follow Jesus' model
Why
pick the FYM program?
God’s call on
our lives isn’t just to learn about His heart for the hurting and
lost. It’s not even to learn how to reach out to these. It’s to
go. It’s to follow Him to all sorts of places where people are
longing for relationship, for healing, for hope, for abundance, for
God.
I love the
strong discipleship aspect of the First Year Missionary program. I
have grown so much this year by being able to dig into the Bible and
pick the brains of my leaders. It has really helped me to fine tune
my relationship with the Lord. I also love the family atmosphere.
I can drop by my leader’s house to hang out and have dinner with
them, or talk with my family members. I love my brothers and
sisters like they were my blood relatives.
The Lord
used this family to help bring churches in the area together. I
loved being able to know people in four different churches and have
strong relationships in each of them. I think about how Jesus
prayed for the Church’s unity, and I feel like we got a chance to
put feet to those prayers.
Decision
time
As I was
nearing my final semester at college, I started weighing my options
for what I would do after graduation. I could either a) get a job
b) go on to grad school or c) become a missionary. Looking back, I
don’t really know why I chose to be a missionary. I knew deep
inside, though, that I needed to get my life in order. The strong
discipleship aspect attracted me to the First Year Missionary
Program. I wanted to make a difference in this world. God asked who
would go, and I said, “Send me.”
I always
told the Lord I would go wherever He wanted, but I never asked Him
when. I was putting God in a box, and decided not to go until after
I graduated from college.
God gave me
a vision of a very different future than what I had planned. He
showed me that His plans for my life are one thousand times more
amazing than anything that I have dreamed up. He puts desires in our
hearts for a reason. If you give Him your heart you are also giving
Him the desires of your heart. He WILL bring those things to
fruition! His love for us is AMAZING, He wants to give us the very
best that He has to offer. Just ask Him!
From
brokenness to changed lives
As a First
Year Missionary, you will be stretched beyond where you’ve ever been
before, and you will leave a completely different person. You will
meet God in amazing and powerful ways, and your relationship with
Him will grow to levels you never imagined.
I’ve felt
like I have been stripped of the world in many ways, and feel this
year has been a time of purification. It goes against the natural
to want to be in here in the city. It has to be a call from the
Lord. You will have the opportunity to touch the forgotten ones in
society and your friendship will change people’s lives for
eternity. Make the most of every opportunity, because the year
flies! Get ready to be broken and put back together again. The
First Year Missionary program will change your life—every part of
it. You will be stretched more than you every thought you would be
and loved more than you ever thought you could be.
I moved from
book knowledge of God to an experience of God. It was a big
sacrifice to come here to Philly. I gave up a lot of things and a
lot of my dreams. I think He has really blessed that decision. My
time here has shaped my plan for my life to God’s plan for me.
From the very moment we stepped out in the colonia, I felt God
pouring joy into me as if it were liquid. As I walked our
neighborhood, God filled my heart with this vision of a garden with
flowers and vegetables and walkways and a bumper crop of laughter.
Children blooming with the knowledge that they are loved and
accepted. The deeply etched worry wrinkles on adults would slide
down and out to make smiley wrinkles around the eyes. A colonia
known for joy.
Today I was reminded deep down in the inner places of my being, that
despite everything, God is faithful and He will make Himself known.
Thank you so much for your prayers!!
FYM home
life
Koinonea
is a supernatural partnership, commitment, communion, and fellowship
between believers. Most American Christians have never experienced
it. In such an individualistic society, in such a cleaned-up,
dressed-up, once-a-week church, we never really let the walls down,
let others see us for who we are. Try avoiding real brotherly love
when you’re in this group!
When I found
out that I would be living with six other girls, I was a little
nervous! But honestly, it has been an incredible blessing to have
six new sisters who love serving the Lord. We laugh together, cry
together, sing together, pray together, and have lots of fun! Every
night is a slumber party at our house! I love my home and each of
the girls who live there.
My favorite
memories so far have been the unscheduled “hang out” times. The
times when we sit around and play dominos, the times when we come
together in spontaneous worship, the times when we encourage each
other all night long—those times are all chiseled into my mind.
That’s when we let down our guard, be ourselves, and really work
together as a family. I’m learning more and more how much of a
family we really are.
Well folks,
this past Sunday the boys and I went to the beach. It was wonderful
being in God’s presence there. God loves the wilderness as much,
well more actually, than I do. The sound of the waves crashing on
the rocks of the reef while we slept by the fire under the stars was
just what I needed to draw my heart back into the heart of my
Father. I can imagine God was rolling on the floor of the throne
room at the sight of us running around with the machete trying to
catch a crab. It was a lot of fun, and I have to praise the Lord
for giving us the outdoors. He is always faithful to restore the
heart of His children in unexpected ways!
Feet to
the streets
Last
Saturday, we shared with the Las Granjas colonia as the cold weather
rapidly approaches. We distributed blue jeans and other clothing,
hot cocoa, and stickers. At first we weren’t sure exactly how to
get the right-sized clothing to the right people with so many
outstretched hands. But the Mexican people were not eager to help
themselves, but rather to help each other. The women grabbed
handfuls of baby clothing and made mental lists of children in need
who were not present. Adults and children alike were grateful for
the hot cocoa on the unusually cold and damp day. It was a joy to
see the fellowship between neighbors as they worked together and
among the students.
God gave us
an opportunity to bring His love to the community in a very tangible
way. One of our purposes as an FYM is to meet felt needs. However,
at times the felt needs of our community become overwhelming. We
are learning that there are many things that we cannot do down here,
but there is nothing that He can’t do through us. Mountains are
being leveled and valleys are being raised one day at a time in
Matamoros. Who couldn’t praise such a God?
Yesterday I
got to visit a Mexican prison, which is where I will be doing my
internship. We walked in, and it was kind of like a little Mexican
community. Nothing like what I expected! We talked for about 45
minutes with the family that used to be the biggest drug dealers in
Matamoros. They even invited us to spend the night at the jail! How
crazy is that?! Of course we probably won’t do it, but God helped
us to begin to build those relationships. Dios le Bendiga!!
Yesterday,
we went on prayer walks, a totally new, but good experience for me. We went to an area right next to a garbage dump, so it kind of
didn’t smell great. It was truly a heart-jerking experience. These
precious people live in homes that are made almost totally out of
scraps they find in the trash dump. Yet everyone we came across was
so friendly and happy. They just wanted to chat and get to know
you. It’s sad that so many Americans are so unfriendly and unhappy
when they have so much.
The saddest part for me was when I asked this boy of about seven if
he knew Jesus and God, and he said no. We have got to go out there
and reach this world for Christ.
I have asked for God to completely change my heart for the lost to be like HIS... and he has. I also saw God in ministry so much this week...I woke up one morning and God said he was going to move in a mighty way and he did. We had 52 kids at our creche and we prayed deliverance for some people and God was standing there with us. On that same day we had 52 kids and only enough food for about 25...I saw God multiply the food right in front of my eyes...God is so good!
Insights
It struck me
this week how many things I’ve known my whole life without once ever
truly understanding it in my heart. The lesson of late is that God
is indeed capable of changing people. Yesterday in the jail, one of
the has-been lead drug ladies of Matamoros cried as she rocked back
and forth with her hands wrapped around her waist. “Heather, the
only reason I stopped doing cocaine and the only thing that keeps me
from going back is that I know, I KNOW, that God has something more
for me. I know that he loves me. I just know it. That’s the only
reason.”
Seeing God slowly soften her heart, her soul, her very being makes
me think that maybe there is hope in the world. That maybe those
staunch, science-is-the-only-truth students at Emory can see that
there is a Something Else, a kingdom in which there are talking
beasts and enchanted forests. That maybe families who are currently
living in a cardboard box can see that there is a Greater beyond the
garbage heap, a world full of ideas and thoughts and theories.
So in short, it’s great. I feel absolutely duty-bound to shout and
sing and dance and just let everyone know that there IS beauty,
there IS hope, there IS a reason for it all. Thank you so much for
praying, for being confident that God will transform us, that God
will transform the world.
This trip
has been the ocean, the surf pounding and pounding against the sand.
At times, everything in my life surges forward and I can see God.
He is the orange-pink sun rising over the fields of fog. He is the
swarm of kids dancing and shrieking around Tiffany. He is in the
tears pouring down Holly’s face when she realized her calling.
Then again,
at times, the tide pulls back. I’m left lonely and dry. I call and
I cry, but it seems as if God is gone. It’s hard trying to obey and
be faithful when I don’t feel Him responding, when I so badly just
want to know Him, to know He’s there. But perhaps that’s the trick
of it all, pursuing truth because there is nowhere else to go,
because those few moments of seeing Him are far better than a
lifetime of anything else.
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