Student missions

Remember this post? Well I do. It's been in my back of my brain since I wrote it in early January. In the first paragraph of that post I promised all of you, my faithful blog readers, that I would write more about how I was inspired and motivated by two things: (1) listening to Paul Howe's testimony from GYC, and (2) hearing Mr. George's (Tim's dad) sermon. Both talks had a distinct emphasis on missions. Well, in today's post I will finally fulfill my promise. The following paragraphs have been taken directly from the journal entry I wrote today for the student mission orientation class.

"The weekend after Christmas break, instead of going to vespers I stayed home and listened to a sermon online from the recent GYC conference. Paul Howe, the older brother of the Howe's I know here at Southern, spoke about how God led him and his wife to work at Gimbie Adventist Hospital in Ethiopia. I was really moved by his sermon and my wish to go as an SM again deepened after hearing his testimony. The next morning, I went to the Village Chapel church in McDonald, Tenn. where my friend Timothy George's parents did the church service. They are career missionaries in Palawan, Philippines and have been doing mission work there since the late 90s. Tim's dad's sermon was really powerful and after the service I was even more convinced that I needed to be doing mission work this coming year.

The next day I went onto the Adventist Volunteers Web site again, like I'd been doing since last May. While browsing the new listings posted there, I saw one that looked remarkably similar to the ADRA position I had been looking at last fall, which had been taken off the site sometime around October. I clicked on it and found that it was the same position, just updated for this next school year. I was ecstatic and signed in to update my already-filled-out application right away. (I contemplated going as an SM during last summer, but eventually decided not to so I could make money for my last year of college instead.)

I didn't actually finish the application and send it off to the GC until last week during spring break. But now that my application is completed and sent in I feel, more and more, that the ADRA position is exactly where God wants me to be next school year. I do have other places, related to the field of communication, picked out as second and third choices, but it seems like God could be leading me to Tanzania next year."

Sorry for anything in the quoted material that doesn't really make sense. It was all written very stream-of-consciousness, which is how I usually end up writing journal entries. Anyway, so there's the blog post that I've been meaning to write for awhile. I put it off because I just never felt like I had finalized my decision until this past Tuesday when I went in to the Student Missions office and talked to the director about going as an SM and joining the SM orientation class. Tonight was my first night going to the class and, while I wasn't terribly impressed with the quality of the two-hour lecture, it was exciting to sit there and realize that this is actually happening. I did actually send in an application. I did actually talk to the campus director of Student Missions. And I am actually in the orientation class, which makes me think that things are looking like I might just be going as an SM once again. This excites me and also kind of scares me. The last time I was an SM was four years ago when I spent three and a half months playing with and taking care of kids. That's easy. Anyone can do that. Am I ready for nine months of writing and editing, doing real journalistic work for a prominent Adventist organization?