God's Call

Hey everyone!  Well, it looks like I am breaking my weekend posting trend and posting during the week, haha, this will mess people up!  :P  A few posts ago I shared some of my family's history in the business and miracle category.  Today I am going to share about where God is calling me as a person and how He has brought me to this point.  I have been blessed to not have to wonder what God wants to do with my life to the extent of most people.  At the age of five I heard God tell me that I was going to be a missionary, I went and told my mom at the time and she felt God tell her that what I was saying was true.  I was going to grow up to be a missionary.  I know that it must have been God telling me, because at the age of five, I wasn't sure what a missionary was, but I knew that is what I was going to be someday.  The years began to pass and I headed off to school.  Mom and dad sent me to public school because that just made sense to them, they had both grown up in the public school system and we lived in a good public school district.  Even in kindergarten the teachers spoke of things a young child shouldn't know about, drugs, alcohol..... it was all talked about.  Sure, they were telling us that we shouldn't do them, but why are you even planting the thought in a young child's head???  Anyways, while there, the idea began to take root that I needed to do something with my life that would be noticeable to everyone.  The other kids had grand plans of becoming famous and rich, and the teachers promoted it too.  While nothing is wrong with fame and riches when used for  the right purpose, it began to lead me away from the calling God had placed on my life.  Being a missionary wasn't some glamorous position that would bring about fame and riches.

First day of kindergarten

When I was reaching the end of first grade, mom one day noticed a group of what appeared to be troubled kids leaving the grade school.  She asked one of the other moms why they had been there and she told mom that they tutored us every day, they were the honor students.  This bothered mom and dad a great deal, these were the kids we were being given to look up to, and this was not what mom and dad wanted my sisters and I to become.  By the end of the school year, after much prayer, mom and dad decided to enroll us in the private school at our church.  They were not sure how they were going to afford it, but they knew it was where God wanted us.  A few weeks before school started, mom received a call from the church asking her to be the school secretary, her pay and the discount she would receive covered the costs of sending all four of us to private school!  Even though I was in a private school, the idea of fame and riches were still what I wanted, I didn't want anything to do with the calling God had placed on my life.  The funny thing is, in my little girl head, the idea of fame and riches came in the form of being a meteorologist!

Fast forward two more years and mom and dad felt God changing our direction yet again.  They had decided to go to the local homeschool convention to buy some books since they had heard that they had selections you couldn't always find at other stores.  On the first evening there, mom started crying and said God had just told her that she was to homeschool us.  This was a role mom never would have imagined herself in, but knew that this is what God was calling her to do.  Mom was scared, but she went back the next day and picked out curriculum and tried to get as much advice as she could.  Looking back, God had already been preparing mom for this role by showing her she was capable of teaching us.  When we were making the transition from public to private school, the private school said I was behind where I should be in reading for a second grader.  While other kids my age were capable of reading small chapter books, I hadn't even been taught the basics such as being able to read "cat" and "dog."  Inside one summer, mom caught me up to my grade level, and well, lets just say books and I have been inseparable ever since.

My sisters and I were thrilled mom was going to homeschool us, we had been wanting her to for a long time and now it was finally happening!  God used that first year to turn me around and get me back on track.  Mom read a chapter of a missionary story to us every day, and by the end of the year I had felt God calling me again, and this time I answered, "Here am I, send me!"  If my mom hadn't been willing to step out on a limb and follow God, I can honestly say I do not know if I would be pursuing the calling God has placed on my life today.  Mom homeschooled me all through high school and has been my biggest cheer leader.  I graduated a few years ago, and I think it was one of the hardest days of my life.  Homeschooling has given us a special bond and friendship greater than any other!  I can honestly say that mom is my best friend.

At my graduation with mom and dad

At my graduation

This brings to where I am now, I am currently in college working towards my degree in Business Marketing.  After talking with multiple missionaries, they all suggested I go for some form of a business degree being that the business side of studies is often neglected in the traditional "missions degree."  When I finish my degree I hope to take online seminary probably through Liberty University.  This year I am also going to get to go on my first missions trip!  As you know from my previous post, in the past finances were tight for my family so I could never go on a missions trip.  After a lot of prayer, God has opened the door for me to go to Kenya this November!  Originally I was supposed to go at Christmas time, but Nairobi will be having elections then and it would be to dangerous, so the trip has been moved forward a month for safety purposes.  I am so excited that God has opened this door for me.  While there I will be getting to work with children which is what I hope to do in the future.  From the time I was a little girl, as young as two or three, I would tell my mom that I was going to grow up to be a mommy to hundreds and thousands of babies.  Mom would laugh knowing this was not possible, but now I know that God placed that desire in my heart at a young age and I will get to be mommy to hundreds of kids because God has called me to work with orphans.  After Kenya I am hoping and praying that I will get to go to the Philippines next summer or the following as that is where I feel God is calling me.  I wish that there was room here to truly share all of the details in what God has been and still is doing to prepare me for the future, but you would have had to be there to fully understand it.  After all, we are talking the story of my life, "X" amount of years!  (HAHA, yeah, the age is still a secret.  :P )  My hope is that this gives a little bit of a glimpse into where I am heading and the amazing way God has brought me to this point.  And to all of you wanting to know, don't worry, I fully intend to post about my trip to Kenya when it comes.  Also be looking for updates around June or July on how the planning is coming together!  Thank you so much for taking the time to read some of my life story!
God Bless,  Michelle