Hello Charleston!

This past weekend I was blessed to be able to spend a few days visiting the city of Charleston, South Carolina, with a couple of friends. We enjoyed lots of good conversations and laughter, had many people ask "where are y'all from?", ate a bunch of ice cream, and learned a few history lessons. It was a charming city with a beautiful downtown, fun beaches, and southern hospitality....needless to say, I quite enjoyed it! Here's a little picture recap:

After an 8 hour drive, we finally made it!

We ate a delicious dinner at Sesame Burger - my favorite was the bacon, peanut butter, and banana burger

 Welcome to Charleston!

 We spent a day on the beach at Sullivan's Island

This was my first time touching the Atlantic Ocean!

Eating Gelato after dinner downtown..yumm!

Apparently we look like "charleston girls"

Touring Boone Hall

The avenue of oaks at Boone Hall, planted in 1743 and almost 1 mile long

Loved the Butterfly Conservatory at Boone Hall

A salt water pond next to a fresh water pond at Boone Hall plantation

This is the Iron Gate that Ryan Gossling ran into when filming the Notebook. Apparently it was an accident that he hit the gate and the film company had to pay for the damages.

I'm thankful to my precious Lord for this precious time with precious friends.

Equipped

One of my prayers as I have been preparing to move to Oaxaca is that the Lord would show me favor in this season of preparation so that I will be most effective while I am there. I have been praying that the Lord would show me favor in learning Spanish and how to serve cross-culturally in this context. I was encouraged when I came across a passage in 2 Corinthians today: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written, ‘He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.’ He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” Paul is actually encouraging the Corinthians to be cheerfully generous in their giving, but this passage was encouraging to me as far as my preparations go for Mexico. We see in verse 6 that “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” He is good and He is able to equip me with all that I need to do His work - and not just do it, to abound in it. Verse 11 says that He will “supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” It is encouraging to know that the Creator of the universe, the Sovereign King, the Author and Perfecter of my faith has not only called me to serve among the nations, but that He is equipping me with grace and supplying me in order to abound in the work He has called me to. And what’s neat is He desires my success in this mission because He desires the glory of His name to be known and the salvation of the lost. I'm so grateful that I can rest in and be fueled by His strength and grace!

Called To Go

 As I have begun to tell people that I will be moving to Mexico for 4 months this fall, I have gotten a variety of responses. Some people are concerned about safety. Some people look at me like they don’t really understand it. Some are just plain excited. The ones concerned about safety ask where exactly I will be going. The ones who don’t understand ask why I am going. And the ones who are excited ask what I will be doing. I can understand where all of these responses come from, but I want to share how the Lord has worked in me and brought me to this point.

This has been a long process in which the Lord has used distinct moments in my life to reveal His plan for me. The Lord began preparing me for missions when I was probably eleven or twelve years old. I distinctly remember having a desire to give all my things away and move to the jungle to live simply among the people there and share Christ with them. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but as I look back, I can see that this was the Lord beginning to instill in me a heart for the nations and a desire to make His glorious name known. When I began taking Spanish classes in high school the Lord softened my heart and gave me a love for hispanic people. I loved practicing Spanish and would get so excited when I saw and heard Hispanics out in public. Fast forward a few years to college. One weekend I was home visiting, and as I was talking with my dad he told me that he thought I was going to be a missionary one day. At the time, I brushed it off even though I was thinking to myself that it was a possibility. Then I went to Ecuador on a mission trip with nursing school. It was my first trip out of the country. I loved the people of Ecuador and felt at home there. I was thousands of miles from home in a foreign place where I was no way near fluent in the language, and yet I felt like I was in my comfort zone - like I had come home. I went to Peru a year and a half later on a mission trip with my church, and the Lord deepened my love for hispanics and my desire to take the Gospel to the nations. Up to this point I recognized that the Lord was working in my heart, giving me a desire to serve cross-culturally but I didn’t really know what it meant. I didn’t know what missions would look like and so I just used that as an excuse to do nothing. Then, when two of the families from my church were commissioned to serve long-term in Ecuador, I felt the Spirit stirring in me and knew that I could no longer sit back and disobey the Lord's call for my life. I felt convicted that I had failed to be obedient in pursuing this and I began accepting the possibility that the Lord was preparing me for missions. Around that time (approximately two years ago), I began a serious relationship with a guy from Central America. We talked about eventually marrying and moving there. I was excited and desired to spend my life doing missions in that context. When the Lord closed that door I felt a moment of identity crisis. I thought this was the plan...it involved missions and seemed to suit me well. But, I realized that even though this wasn’t the plan the Lord had for me, it didn’t mean I couldn’t or shouldn’t continue to pursue missions. So, I met with a member of the global team at my church and over the next months the Lord opened up this opportunity for me to serve alongside missionaries in Oaxaca, Mexico. I am very grateful for this opportunity and feel privileged that the Lord is choosing to use me in this way.

When I think about my motivation for going, several things come to mind. The first is that I serve the one true God who created all things and is worthy of all of our praise and obedience. The people in Mexico are not excluded from this. I desire to take this Good News to them so that one day when I stand in the presence of my Savior there will be Mexicans from Oaxaca standing beside me, singing His praise. The next is that Christ has commanded me to go. Matthew 28:18-20 says, “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’.” This is a command that requires obedience for all believers. Wherever the Lord has us, He has commanded us to make disciples. Another motivation for me is that the Lord has clearly given me a heart for missions and for hispanics. He is my guide and I will follow where He leads. Isaiah 48:17 says “This is what the Lord says - Your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the Lord your God who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go’.”

So, to all those concerned about safety asking where I will be going: I am going to the nations. I go knowing that this world is dangerous and that I may face hardship, but also knowing that He is worthy of suffering, even to the point of death, and that believers can rejoice in suffering, counting it a privilege to fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of the church (Colossians 1:24).  I go with confidence that the Lord is on my side: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39.

To all those who don’t understand and ask why I am going: I go to glorify the Lord because He is worthy of the praise of these people and because He has commanded me to. Romans 10:14-17 says “How then will they call on him whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’...So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

To all those who are excited and ask what I will be doing: I will be making disciples. I will be spending 4 months building relationships with these people and ministering to their needs in order to show them who Christ is. May He work in the hearts of many people so that they will trust in Him. May I live in a way that most effectively makes disciples. And may the Lord be most glorified!

A Toles Road

This is a story of a girl walking along a road. It’s not just any road. It's a toll road. A road where a price must be paid. But the girl didn’t have any tokens. She couldn’t pay the price she owed. And then something beautiful happened. Someone paid it for her. Someone showed her love and gave her a token to pay the price she owed. This is my story. It’s a Toles Road. And it’s a story of how Jesus Christ gave his very life to pay the price I owed for my sin. This is a story of how Christ showed me redeeming love and gave me a token to pay my toll. It’s a story of how he is walking with me along this road, continuing to show me tokens of redeeming love.

I was born into a family with believing parents, and was blessed to be taught the truths of the bible from an early age. I did not understand deep theology when I was little, but I believe I had the faith of a child. This has caused me to struggle some in sharing my testimony because I don’t know an exact moment when the Lord saved me and there wasn’t a drastic turning point in my life. But I am grateful that the Lord chose to save me at a young age. As a child, the Lord used my parents, church, and teachers to give me an understanding of who He was. I was taught and believed the truths of the Bible...that there is one true and Holy God who created all things, that we have all disobeyed Him and are dead in our sins, and that Jesus Christ is God’s Son who came to earth, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross to save the world from sin. As I grew older, I realized that Jesus’s death was personal for me. He didn’t come just to save the world; he came to save me. I also began to take ownership of my faith as I grew older. I learned how to study the Word on my own and realized that being a follower of Christ involved an active relationship with him. I remember wondering at one point when I was 10 or 11 if I believed these truths just because that’s what my parents believed and that’s what I had been taught. I wondered if I would have believed differently if I had been born somewhere like India and had been taught a different religion. Over time, the Holy Spirit worked in me to show me that it was purely grace that I had been saved. It was grace that I was born into a context where I had been exposed to the Gospel. It was grace that the Lord opened my eyes to see the truth and soften my heart towards Him. I learned that God chose me and that there wasn’t anything I could have done to be saved. I knew God as my Father and my Friend, but up until the last couple years, there was a piece missing. I didn’t understand the Lord as my Husband. I remember hearing a sermon once and the pastor was talking about being passionately in love with the Lord. I struggled with this thought because I had loved the Lord for a long time but I never really understood being in love with Him. It wasn't until the ending of my first relationship that I began to understand the Lord as my Husband. And it has been since that time that the Lord has continued to teach me about redeeming love. 

In the book of Hosea, we see a picture of the Lord pursuing, wooing, warning, and disciplining in order to bring about repentance in the rebellious Israelites. The Israelites had turned away from God and given themselves over to the worship of idols. Similarly, Hosea’s wife, Gomer, had been unfaithful to her husband and continually run after her lovers. The Lord calls Hosea to love Gomer the way that He loves Israel...with redeeming love. This is not a feeling or an expression of words. It is an action. It is a choice to show sacrificial love to another, denying yourself in order to do good for them, even when it is not deserved and the desired response in not forthcoming. It is persistent and persevering. Hosea showed this love to Gomer by providing for her, pleading with her, protecting her, sacrificing for her, disciplining her, and wooing her, all the while she was unfaithful to him. We see that the Lord loved Israel with redeeming love in the same ways. And we are just like Gomer and the stubborn Israelites. We have prostituted ourselves, turning from our Creator to ourselves and things of this world just as Israel had. And God has shown us redeeming love by sacrificing His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the redemption price for us. Christ gave his life to buy us back. Christ died to provide a way for us to return to Him in repentance. Repentance is necessary in order to return to the Lord. And repentance is hard because it requires that we revisit areas of pain and brokenness. And when we think of repentance that is usually where we leave it. But repentance also involves reward. It involves the gift of redemption through Christ. As redeemed, we have been wooed just as Hosea describes His wooing of Gomer and God’s wooing of Israel. We have a Husband who desires to speak tenderly to us, who has blessed us, and has equipped us to be faithful. We are no longer enslaved to our baals, our sins. We are no longer slaves to our lovers of this world. We no longer need to remember the names of our baals but call upon the name of our God, our Husband. He provides for us. He is faithful. And He has given us His Son and His Spirit so that we can be presented before him pure and righteous...and so that we can be faithful to Him.  And because of what He has done for us, we can know Him. We can know Him intimately and deeply and truly. We can know him not just as Father and Friend...we can know Him as Husband.