10 Reasons WHY!?!?

10 Reason Why God Called Me To This Specific Mission:

1. To give up comfort – For the most part, living at home is very easy. I have my car that takes me where I need to go, when I want to go, an extensive opportunity in education & work with the ability to work however much I want & to make the amount of money I desire, access to clean water with the push of a button, a warm spacious home with my own bedroom, clean clothes & let’s be real… not too many bugs either 😉

2. There is a literal call on my life to evangelize – God has marked me with boldness & confidence that had led to a desire for spreading the gospel with an un-offended heart, driven by love.

3. Living a life of simplicity = more dependency on Jesus – It’s easy to have control over my life (or at least feel like it): financially, emotionally, spiritually & so on! I don’t feel cute enough right now? go try on 10 outfits & finally feel good enough, feeling a little dry in my relationship with God right now? go to church on Sunday because worshipping in a body usually helps, don’t have enough money to go out with friends next month to feel a little less alone? pick up extra hours to be able to pay for more things & feel a little less lonely… But what happens when I don’t have the resources to cope like normal?

4. The Great Commission – Matthew 28:16-20 says, “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.” (Jesus has told me to GO!)

“When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” (I am not only going for the ripened “yes” people but the doubters. I am going to experience God showing up in moments of discouragement & doubt.)

“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

5. To encourage my own life & the lives of those around me – Since losing my brother to suicide in 2020, I have been hit with the realness & value of life. As many of you may share a similar story, I also took life seriously for granted a couple times, to the point where I had blueprints of how I would soon end things. Fortunately, my life pivoted & I was met by the love of God as well as an updated & transformed blueprint of how my life would begin to look. Not everyone has the magnificent outcome I got to experience because of the people pouring into my life at the time. But wow, what if every single person on the planet had the opportunity to be met face to face with someone who pursued them to the point where you couldn’t see anything but the love of God that will sustain.

6. God created family & family is everywhere – I’m believing that God is going to wreck my view of who & what family looks like through an invitation to meet other nations, tribes, people & languages.

7. Being selected – Not everyone has the ability to get up & leave, the resources to raise thousand & thousands of dollars, the support to leave home & still return to a place called home. Some people have jobs as teachers in schools who we depend on to educate our children, some have kids who they need to tend to, some run ministries or churches that need guidance at all times, some do construction to make a living for their family, some go to school to pursue career paths & some visit other countries & states to share the good news to people who may have not encountered this story before. We all do different things that require different needs but throughout all of our positions in life, we too can share the gospel in our schools, with our colleagues & co-workers, to our families & at the grocery store on a Tuesday.

8. Position myself to create room for God to reign in my life – In John 13, Jesus says to love one another as He has loved us. Unconditional love, sacrificing my wants & sometimes needs for the sake of other’s, stooping so low to put God before myself, lifting others up from a confidence in God, above all, serving His people with compassion & diligence even when my flesh says otherwise.

9. Immersion in a different culture – I have an ongoing passion of wanting to know more about food, traditions, morals, languages, art, music & lifestyle in other cultures. Yes, I could just go on vacation but the bigger picture & purpose behind everything mission trips entail is a lot more intriguing!

10. Life changing experience – My life has been radically changed by God through missions. My faith has completely shifted & awareness of His glory in every little detail has overcome my life. I am expectant & ready to see God show up in the simplest ways like He did throughout previous trips when random people with a language barrier would come sit next to us while we worship because of the peace felt in that environment, got to be a part of kids gathering weekly just to hear bible stories acted out & translated into their language, witnessed college students pass out water bottles with bible verses on them to other students from their school bar hopping on a Thursday night, women declare that they will do what it takes to bring the gospel to everyone they encounter & so so so much more!!

Moral of it all, this mission trip was a calling on my life. I didn’t wake up one day & think “Ooo this would be a cool idea!” or try to live up to an expectation that someone had told me I might be good at doing, not at all. God knew from the beginning in what ways He had set me apart, like He does all of us, & this just happens to be one of them. I am beyond thankful for my heart to conquer the world & to keep living according to the callings God keeps revealing to me. But there’s no way I would be able to do it if it weren’t for those moments of intimacy when God started speaking these things.

Love always,
<3 P