Hey guys! I'm new to this blog thing and it may get a little getting use to but it is the best way for everyone who would like to keep up with my adventure and what the Lord is showing me along the way. As you know I am going to be living in Mexico for 9 months. While I am there I'll be teaching English and doing missions work. I will be living with the Vallejo family. I've known this family for many years and love them as if they were my own family. I will have 2 weeks off for Christmas and 2 weeks off for Easter so you will see me soon enough. : )
I guess I should begin by what brought me to this decision to make this move. I have gone to law school for one year and the plan has been, throughout this past year, to somehow make it back to school and I still feel like that may be one of the things that God would like for me to do but I had no idea that it was not intended for this year. When I was not able to go back to school after last year I was absolutely heart broken. I felt like God had completely forgotten about me. I felt as though he did not have anything planned for me. No school, no good job, no husband, and no direction. I cried A LOT and I'm not a big crier. The only time that I can remember crying more, was when I lost my dad in 2005. I was so angry with God.
Well, I moved back to Harrison and was blessed with two jobs, working for the Pierce Arrow Theater in Branson and the domestic abuse shelter in Harrison. I started doing a consistent quiet time once I moved back to Arkansas. As I began spending more time with the Lord I became absolutely broken with my attitude about life. I did not realize it, but all that seemed to matter was what God could do for me. Over these past few years I, unknowingly, lost all prospective on our purpose here on Earth. Our purpose is to serve the Lord. Not for the Lord to serve us. Our purpose is to lead others to a relationship with Christ and share this gift that we've been given.
Well, before this past year the last time I did missions work in Mexico was my sophomore year in college. My family and I went to Mazatlan, MX with our church. Our church takes two trips to Mexico each year. One trip is in March and the other is in November. Because I was not in school this past year I had the opportunity to go on the November mission trip to Los Mochis, MX. While I was there I became truly convicted and realized the purpose of me not going on to finish school at that time. The very first house that I visited a woman came to know the Lord. I saw the house and decided to visit the occupants and she came to know the Lord. God showed me through this experience that the decision that this woman made should be reason enough for me to not be in law school. Her entire eternity which is something that our human minds can not possibly grasp, is changed. She will spend ETERNITY with the Lord because I was not in law school this year. What an overwhelming and humbling feeling that was. All the pain and frustration was all worth it if a single soul was changed for eternity. There were many more lives won to the Lord by the end of this November trip and I returned feeling more blessed and broken than ever before for the people of Mexico. Would she have ever made this decision if I had gone back to law school? I don't know. Would she have made this decision if I had not chosen to go on the November mission trip to Mexico? I don't know. Would she have made this decision if I had not made the decision to walk up to her house? I have no clue. What I do know is why I am not in school right now. I have learned that there is absolutely nothing on the face of this planet that is more important than being a witness for the Lord. WE are his arms and hands and legs and feet. We are it. For Christ-followers, this is our purpose in life. This does not mean that we all need to take trips to other countries because our very own country is hurting desperately for the Lord but this does mean that wherever you are and whatever you are doing in life, priority one is NOT YOU. Priority one is winning lives to the Lord through your actions and words and the way you handle situations and having a broken heart for the lost souls. This is it. What is your purpose in life?? Same as mine.
I went back to Mexico in March and stayed for two weeks this time. It was an incredible trip. The first week I worked with my church missions group and the second week I worked with a wonderful group from Tennessee. I again came back feeling so blessed to be sent by the Lord and was heart broken for the houses that we did not hit. Who would come back for them? The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Who will come back to Mexico and finish the harvest? When I returned I began re-applying for law schools. I had several schools that caught my interest and by the end of the summer I had selected a good school in Knoxville, TN to continue my pursuit of this degree. All the time in the back of my mind was Mexico and the lessons that I had learned over this past year. Randomly one day I began google searching for jobs in Los Mochis. I can not tell you even to this day why I decided to randomly search but I did and up popped a site that said "Teaching English in Mexico." I remember thinking that that sounded pretty cool but my chances of this all happening before the school year began were minimal. I brought this idea up to Gwen Vallejo and she said that there is a school in Los Mochis called the Arizona School of English. These thoughts began to swirl around. I had already received an acceptance letter from Knoxville but I could not get the thought of going to Mexico out of my head. Then one Sunday night I was taking notes during the sermon and got sidetracked. On one side of my paper I wrote law school and on the other side I wrote Mexico. Then I began to write the pros and cons for each and started praying that God would show me right then and there what I should do because I was running out of time. Then Pastor Tommy said, "Seize the day." He said that this is the time for us to share with others. Don't put it off. That was it. Law school will always be there but will the opportunity to do missions work in Mexico always be there? If I get married and start a family I could not very easily pick my family up and say, "Well off to Mexico we go." Now is the time to do it. So I circled it on my paper and said okay God show me how.
For those of you who know me well you know that things do not usually work out very easily for me. It seems like I always have so many obstacles to work through before I can actually make it to my goal. Well, I asked Marco Vallejo to see if there were any job openings at the school. Sure enough there were three positions open. Marco told me to send my things by email to the school as soon as possible so I did. At this point I am just a few weeks from needing to head to TN and start classes. I waited for about a week and emailed the school and explained that I needed to know something fairly soon about the position so that I could start making plans. Then the school called me and did a phone interview within a few days and in a few more days I received an email asking me to join their teaching staff. Wow! I have never had anything work as smoothly as this has worked out and I know that this worked smoothly because this is exactly where the Lord desires for me to be this upcoming 9 months. So here I am fixing to leave for Mexico.
I know this has been a long blog but I feel that I need to explain how I reached this decision and the lessons that I learned over this past year. I hope that maybe you can learn something too about living your life for the Lord and not for yourself. It was a humbling experience for me and of course it is an ongoing lesson because we're human, but it is getting easier to have true faith and trust in the Lord not matter what I do in life. I'm not sure if I will have time to do another post before I leave or not but I will certainly try to, if not then I'll see you all in Mexico!
Prayer Request: Pray for my safety as the drug issues are still very active in Mexico. Pray that I will find God's purpose for me in every situation. Also pray for the lost souls in Mexico that are searching for hope. These lost souls include even family members of the church leaders in the Vallejo church.
