To back up a bit, I want to confess: I have half wanted to start up a blog for years now, but the real push came when my Mom suggested I start a missions blog to keep my prayer and financial partners updated. She suggested I call it, "To Peru and Back," but because of the reason I am about to explain, the name of this post is all I can offer. Though this is the reason I pressured myself to start a blog, God impressed on me that the purpose of this blog is to record God's greatness and the little services he has granted and chosen me to do.
So now that that is cleared up, I want to share with you about the project. I was sitting in cookie time at my church with my friends, talking about all sorts of things. Then another friend sat by us and started telling me about this mission trip a few of the kids her youth group was going on. She was animated and more excited than I have ever seen her -- save when we were seven and I told her our apple trees carried super sour green apples -- and going on and on about the opportunities to serve in Peru with children, churches, women my age, etc. I was thrilled. Not the "oh, that's good for you" thrilled, but I was seriously interested in joining the team. When she told me, "Lexi, you should come with us!" I was just about ready to grab a sweatshirt and fly to another continent with her.
Of course, being under 18 years old and needing my parents' permission to go on an airplane and be with people I didn't know presents a great opportunity to remind me that God is in control of my future, and he is my Master and the Lord of my life, not me. The time that my friend mentioned this trip was a week before the deadline of signing up to be part of the team, and presented only a matter of days to make a life-changing decision.
While I was nearly mentally packed and boarding the plane (even though the mission trip is next summer), my parents bothered to breathe again and shared a few concerns. Lexi, traveling is expensive, this would require all your money from now until then and more. Lexi, your friend's youth group is a few hours' drive away, and attending meetings would be difficult. Lexi, have you prayed about this?
So we all prayed: my Dad, my Mom, and me. Together, separate, and in between. I asked God a for two specific signs to show whether or not he wants me to go. #1: That my friend herself would be going, because at the time her parents were still indefinite. #2: That I would read in the Bible about missionaries in the book I was currently reading, John. Well, during that week I read several passages in John along my daily Bible reading about Jesus sending out missionaries, and a verse specifically where he is telling his disciples to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send out workers (missionaries in the context). That next Sunday, on the deadline, my friend told me her parents were letting her go and her paperwork was in.
Because I just got the paperwork and needed help from my youth pastor, I ran later than the deadline and didn't get my paperwork on time. Hoping they would accept it late, I finished it a few weeks later due to crazy business, forgetting to email, and well, life. But how great of God! Because our team is small, the window of opportunity to sign up was a little wider than first intended, and somehow, God chose me to be a part of the Peru Mission Project in summer 2013, and made a narrow way for me to get in!
I will write more details later, but for now, this is the current mission project I am looking at. What is yours?
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