As I sit here ready to to go to bed I keep on thinking, three weeks from right now I'll be going to bed on a ship half way around the world in a room with five strangers that I've never met. Yep, that's how my life has been for the last week or so, constantly processing things that I need to get done before I leave in what is now 19 days. I can see how God has transformed and prepared my life over the last year for this time and the next six months, but sometimes I get overwhelmed with the things that need to be done.
It recently came to my attention that almost a year ago I remember for a week or two, maybe three, I prayed that God would give me a yearning. A heart for a specific group. I didn't know if it was children's ministry, youth ministry, working with the homeless in St. Louis. I wasn't sure what it was, I just knew that God had something bigger for me and I really felt bad that I hadn't committed my life to whatever He had planned for me. Two years prior to that I had been attending First Baptist and committed to work at a boy's summer camp in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. I talked to Bro. Tim, the pastor, about how I wanted to commit my life to whatever God had planned for me, not what my plans were. I suppose last year I realized that yes I did follow through on my commitment for a while but I was getting away from it. I was tired of working my 7-4 job driving back and forth to the city to do work. I wanted to find something that I could give my life to, something that I could give all of my free time so that in the end all my efforts would benefit the ministry that I was working for and the Glory of Christ. That might seem a little odd, but I began to look at all that I had been doing, cooking lunch for rich people. Wow, at the end of my life I guess I could say "I hope they enjoyed their meal....I've committed my life to the fullness of their stomachs." WOW!, That really puts it in perspective. So, I began to look again. I had off and on looked for a "ministry", something Christian oriented, that I could use the talents that God gave me so that others might come to know Christ better. Well that's no easy task. Searching and searching online through different associations, different conventions, different organizations, looking for a cooking position that paid (because fundraising wasn't for me). I could never seem to find one. So many places relied on retired people or college students looking for a summer job, but I wanted something full-time that payed cold hard cash. January came around, seemed like I was going to be stuck feeding peoples stomachs for a while. Then one night towards the end of the month I was talking to a friend of mine, kinda odd because I had been facebook friends with this person for several years, but I hadn't seen them for a few years now, for some reason God had them call me that night. They called and just wanted to chat, see how things had been going (reconnect the old-fashion way before people facebook stalked each other). So in the middle of the conversation the topic of work came up and how I wanted to find something with a bigger purpose than just feeding people, something that would use my God given talents so that others might come to know Christ better. Next thing my friend mentioned was Mercy Ships, I had never heard of Mercy Ships but it sounded interesting. A hospital on a ship, I'm sure people have to eat there, so I looked up the website. Looked interesting, I clicked on a few pages read through them but noticed that it was all volunteer. The workers had to support themselves. There it was, the big red flag flew up (fundraising-that's stuffs not for me) so we went on about our conversation. The next day I couldn't get my mind off this "hospital ship". All day during work I kept wondering about this hospital ship. So when I got home that evening I went back and looked at the Mercy Ships website. Looking over it again I looked to see if it was volunteer based, hoping that somehow miraculously God had changed that over night and they paid their workers now. When I got to the page that stated that all of the crew for Mercy Ships was volunteer and funded through fundraising God spoke to me and said "don't worry about that, if you just do what I have planned for you, I will supply all of your needs" WOW! I couldn't ignore that, I had to do Mercy Ships! So from the beginning of February I started following Mercy Ships, where the Africa Mercy was and where it was going. Looking on YouTube to see videos about what they do and who they help. Reading blogs from people who had served, were serving and were getting ready to serve the forgotten poor of West Africa. I even had the opportunity to meet somebody that had served on the Anastasis (one of the previous ships) at a friends wedding. After a month of following this organization I decided through prayer that this was the organization that God had planned for me to serve with. I just couldn't get it off of my mind. God was going to have me serve with Mercy Ships.
Stay tuned to hear about my application process and my training at the International Operations Center.
If you feel that God has called you to support me on this mission, click over to my crewmates profile and begin doing what God has called you to do.
