Ruined for the better

It has been one year since I left on this journey and I honestly cannot believe how fast this year has went by. This past year has been the scariest, craziest, most trying experience of my life thus far. Before leaving on this trip I was basically freaking out, crippled with fears and self-doubts and doubts of this coming year, and to be completely honest I thought I would be dead by this point. I didn’t really see me coming back from this trip, and if you’ve ever ridden in a marshutka in Ukraine you know, dying was a real possibility.  But through this year of God calling me into the unknown (to me) on this crazy journey and me following him more out of obedience than desire (like I said crippling fear) I allowed God to radically change my life and experience him and his love for his children in a deeper more personal way.

 This year has been full of God showing me how he takes care of and provides for his children. For someone that likes plans and likes to have control over situations, handing over the control (or what I thought I had) to God was not always easy. I had many moments of anxiety and worry over not knowing what lied ahead, in the beginning every time I got onto a bus or plane I was fearful of the next step, but God continued to go before me and just show me his faithfulness. From putting me in a host family in Albania that quickly took me in as one of their own making me quickly be a part of the family to having families and ministries open up their homes to me (sometimes at just a weeks’ notice) when my plans leaving from Ukraine to Romania fell through. To God just always going before me and placing the right people in my path to encourage me when I’m having a rough day.

I think it was the first full week of me being in Albania that I knew this year long journey was just the beginning of what God was preparing for me. Honestly speaking, that was another fear I had before leaving America, I knew that if by some chance I did survive this year I wouldn’t be the same, and that just freaked me out. But as this year progressed God just started taking these fears and self-doubts away and just showing me how He has molded me and equipped me to love and share life with his people cross-culturally. I know without a doubt that serving God cross-culturally is what I’ve been created to do. The more I came to this realization the more fear and anxiety would creep back in, but when given to God he continues to provide.

One of these fears being my student loans

From my previous two years of schooling I had accumulated quite a bit of debt from living in the dorms and attending classes. I know that I can’t take debt with me on the mission field so When God started leading towards doing missions fulltime this debt was my main struggle. I had no idea how I was going to begin to pay these debts off and get on the field especially since I have no job lined up for when I get home. After a while of being discouraged and just feeling stuck, I finally just gave it over to God and told him that if this is really the way he is leading me then he would open the doors, even if it took over 5 years of crazy working to pay off the debt I was still in. Giving it fully over to God took a huge (unneeded) burden off my shoulders, something that I didn’t need to be holding on to. The craziest thing happened though, the very next day I had a message from a friend saying that they felt led to take over my monthly student loan payments! Like I didn’t even know how to process this, just completely blown away how God provides and moves mountains!

Things have happened this year that I can’t humanly explain, things that I just have to step back and ask “is this real life!?!” I am just completely in awe and overwhelmed at how good and faithful and patient our father is and how when we give it in his hands we allow him to amaze us.

A few months after this I was having another spout with fear and doubting when it comes to support raising, it freaks me out, going into full time missions is much different than raising support for a ten day trip or even a year trip. I didn’t know how I was going to be completely dependent on others and the church body. To have others see the vision and stand behind me as I go wherever God leads me. (I know I never learn) But after having another hash out with God, and realizing that my perspective was all wrong, I’m not going to be dependent on others and the church body but on God alone, and just reminding myself of how faithful God is and that when he calls he always provides a way even if it’s not the way we would have expected. A few weeks after giving this to God one of my best friends from college messaged me to see how I was doing and as we were talking about how God was leading me and my plans to follow she tells me she’s been wanting to support and right then and there she becomes my first supporter for this next chapter!

Growing up I had a pretty amazing youth minister, the kind of guy that lives all out for the Gospel and helps youth to see that God doesn’t and cannot fit in a box but is an active, personal, overwhelming God that is so in love with you. So this guy used to sign his e-mails with the closing “ruined for Christ” I of course liked this because you know my cool youth minister said it and the idea behind it was deep.  This year though, I feel like I finally understand what that closing means. To be ruined for Christ, to come to a place of deeply knowing Him, and living Him out in such a way that you can never go back to living a less for him type of life, a life that isn’t completely sold out. You can’t go back to the old you, because the old you did die, but that’s more than okay because who you are now is so much more than you could have ever imagined. what lies ahead (though still unknown and at times scary) might be seen as a negative or radical thing to some but I fully believe that, being ruined for Christ is the best, most rewarding, life-fulling, amazing, at times stressful but worth it, full of adventure type of life there is to have . And although this road is anything but easy I am so excited to be led and to live my life out for Jesus loving his children both those who know him and those who are yet to realize they are loved in a crazy way by a God that ruins lives for the better.

Please be praying

-          I travel tomorrow! It’s going to be a crazy long day, I’m starting at 4am German time.

-          These next few weeks as I adjust back into life in America

-          For the decisions that need to be made about the next steps and that I continue to follow God and turn to him instead of worrying about things first

Thank you all for joining me on this journey, I look forward to sharing with you all when I’m home and really look forward to just seeing you again! I do plan to continue the blog to keep people updated on what God is doing during this next phase. 

I really really really want one of these!