Spring is in the air!

Well, almost. It is going to be in the 60s here in southern Missouri and I am going to enjoy it! I am super excited about the warm weather and maybe it will bring up my spirit a little. I have not been too fun to be around the past couple of days, but I can feel it is turning around!

So in an earlier post I mentioned that I would share my story of my call to missions so here it goes! I was born into a Christian family. I was saved at the age of 6 and I was in church all time, whether I wanted to be there or not! My family was very involved in many aspects of the church and a lot of the activities were missions related but I did not recognize it at the time. Missionaries visited our church on a regular basis, too. It was always an exciting time when a missionary was in town. However, just because it was an exciting time did not mean I was really excited about missions. As I got older, my relationship with Christ changed dramatically and I finally got what being a Christian was all about. I started enjoying church, I became a leader among my peers, and I began to work on my personal relationship with Jesus.

I then moved away from my hometown to go to college in Springfield. Finding a new church was exciting and important to me. It turns out, it was super easy. My sister and her husband were attending a church in Springfield, Hamlin, and I began going with them. It was an easy fit and I knew that it was the place for me. God has proved this time and time again, too! Hamlin is a missions minded church. I have learned so much about missions and what it looks like. There have been many opportunities for me to serve.

Bro. Jim, the pastor at Hamlin until about a week ago, did a study on missions in December 2005 and that is the first time I felt a call to missions. I talked with leaders in the church about it and they advised me to continue to be involved in mission work at the church and pray about what God had laid on my heart. I did just that. I took almost every opportunity to be involved at Hamlin in some way. This call on my life never really went away. In Fall of 2007, a missionary family that my church has supported for years came to update us about their ministry. Their ministry is in Japan and I was more intrigued this time. I took the time to sit with them and talk about different aspects of Japan. The more I knew about Japan, the more I was interested! The missionaries gave people in the church a yen and I make a commitment on that day that I would keep that yen in my wallet and every time I saw it I would pray about Japan and the opportunity to go there. God answered that pray in the Spring of 2008. During a church service where a missionary from Africa was speaking, God spoke to my heart. I then began the journey of traveling to Japan for 6 months.

It has been great to see how God has been working all my life for this moment. So many things had to be planted for me to accept this call on my life! So many people had to enter my life for me to be where I am today! I love it! Nonetheless, this has not been an easy road and it will continue to be hard. It is hard to get everything in place to go to Japan. It will be difficult to raise the funds. The only way my family, my friends, and I can get through this is with God's help! It is hard to totally depend on God for this, but that doesn't mean we won't! God has called me to this journey and the people closest to me get a front row seat. They shouldn't be surprised that God has called me into missions! After all they are the ones that instilled missions into my heart!

Preparing to GO TELL-
Amanda