I have always wanted to see the world. I have always wanted to travel and get out of my own space ever since I was a little girl. When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a paleontologist and travel to the deserts of the world to discover the past and the extinct creations of God. When I was a little older, I wanted to study marine archaeology and travel the depths of the oceans. In high school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I took a step of faith my senior year and left my country for the first time and spent seven weeks away in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This blog was created to be a way to update everyone while I was there. Those were the best seven weeks of my life so far, and I would give anything to be able to go back. Because I was out of my home and living and working amongst strangers who became my family through faith and who I am still so deeply connected to emotionally.
I have never wanted to stay in one place. Coming back to the same home I leave would be nice, but recently, I've been having this overwhelming urge and push to leave and not come back. I love my family, I love my friends, and in some ways, I love my country. But my country, if we are completely honest, does not need me. Nor do I necessarily need it. Over the summer, I kept getting the urge to go somewhere, anywhere. Anywhere but where I am, where I was. Granted, I went back home because at the time my family and I thought I would be needed to help everyone while my mom recovered from surgery. Because of that, I do not feel too deeply a sense of regret for staying home. But next year, I don't want to go back home.
I love my family, but the biggest thing they taught me was they did not raise me to be a boomerang, they raised me to be an arrow. Psalm 127:3-5 says, "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate." My parents firmly believed this, and they firmly believed it was their job to raise me and my siblings to be not just arrows, but flaming arrows, on fire for God and ready to spread His love and His story like wildfire. And if I do that better halfway across the world, then great! Do they like the idea of me leaving and being all alone? Of course not, what mother is going to willingly send her daughter into the world that so terribly treats women? But they trust God with me and with my life, my safety.
And still, I have been afraid of bringing up the idea of leaving the country for good to them. Because that is such a monumental life decision, and it is really quite a big deal. But it is not an urge I can shake off and leave in the back of my mind. This urge has gotten so strong and so invasive that I must act or I will never be able to focus on anything else until it is handled. And that is how I know this is not of myself or my own ambitions. This is from God.
This week is Global Focus Week at Liberty, and I love, love, love GFW. I love the booths in the library, I love the speakers the school brings into convocation, and I love the sense of willingness you get from the students. But today was So. Much. Better. David Platt (renowned for his books Radical, and Follow Me, as well as others) was our speaker today, and before I go any further, I want to say one thing: David Platt has been gifted by God with his ability to speak and with his passion for the world and his ability to clearly articulate it to the masses. So today, Dr. Platt stood up and pleaded with us to understand the depth of what an unreached people group is and the urgency with which we need to be acting. I got a lot of good notes, and I want to share them with you all so you can understand where I'm coming from in a few paragraphs.
I am not meant to stay in this country. I am not meant to teach in an American school. I would love to stay and help bring about education reform, but that is not my calling. My passion is to help people, my path is to teach, my calling is to leave. There are children dying because no one is presenting the Bible as a work of literature and in doing so presenting them with the truth that it contains. There is no one translating the Bible so that students can understand it. No one is presenting the gospel to an entire third of our world population.
And for months I have been struggling with trying to discern whether or not this desire to leave and to go international was just something from myself in an attempt to get away from a city I didn't want to live in, or if this was a true calling from God. But throughout all of convo, I was repeatedly given a sense of reassurance and relief that this is not something I want to do. This is something God wants me to do. And being able to finally know that is a God-given desire is such a relief and has removed so much internal stress from my life.
I feel I am rambling now, so maybe I should be done.
In peace,
Emily E.
I have never wanted to stay in one place. Coming back to the same home I leave would be nice, but recently, I've been having this overwhelming urge and push to leave and not come back. I love my family, I love my friends, and in some ways, I love my country. But my country, if we are completely honest, does not need me. Nor do I necessarily need it. Over the summer, I kept getting the urge to go somewhere, anywhere. Anywhere but where I am, where I was. Granted, I went back home because at the time my family and I thought I would be needed to help everyone while my mom recovered from surgery. Because of that, I do not feel too deeply a sense of regret for staying home. But next year, I don't want to go back home.
I love my family, but the biggest thing they taught me was they did not raise me to be a boomerang, they raised me to be an arrow. Psalm 127:3-5 says, "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate." My parents firmly believed this, and they firmly believed it was their job to raise me and my siblings to be not just arrows, but flaming arrows, on fire for God and ready to spread His love and His story like wildfire. And if I do that better halfway across the world, then great! Do they like the idea of me leaving and being all alone? Of course not, what mother is going to willingly send her daughter into the world that so terribly treats women? But they trust God with me and with my life, my safety.
And still, I have been afraid of bringing up the idea of leaving the country for good to them. Because that is such a monumental life decision, and it is really quite a big deal. But it is not an urge I can shake off and leave in the back of my mind. This urge has gotten so strong and so invasive that I must act or I will never be able to focus on anything else until it is handled. And that is how I know this is not of myself or my own ambitions. This is from God.
This week is Global Focus Week at Liberty, and I love, love, love GFW. I love the booths in the library, I love the speakers the school brings into convocation, and I love the sense of willingness you get from the students. But today was So. Much. Better. David Platt (renowned for his books Radical, and Follow Me, as well as others) was our speaker today, and before I go any further, I want to say one thing: David Platt has been gifted by God with his ability to speak and with his passion for the world and his ability to clearly articulate it to the masses. So today, Dr. Platt stood up and pleaded with us to understand the depth of what an unreached people group is and the urgency with which we need to be acting. I got a lot of good notes, and I want to share them with you all so you can understand where I'm coming from in a few paragraphs.
- Unreached people groups do not have access to the Gospel.
- They have a general knowledge of God.
- Because of this general knowledge, they have rejected God.
- They are trying desperately to appease different gods and sometimes even to appease their own self and sins
- The sinful nature manifests in us in a myriad of different ways.
- Biblically, if you are unreached, you stand condemned before God.
- There are not any innocent people in the world, there are condemned people all over the world who need to hear the gospel.
- Biblically, if you are unreached, you will never be told about the good news, the amazing news, the awesome truth of the saving gift of Salvation and the gospel.
- The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.
- Unreached people's knowledge of God is only enough to damn them to hell forever.
- All they have is the bad news.
I am not meant to stay in this country. I am not meant to teach in an American school. I would love to stay and help bring about education reform, but that is not my calling. My passion is to help people, my path is to teach, my calling is to leave. There are children dying because no one is presenting the Bible as a work of literature and in doing so presenting them with the truth that it contains. There is no one translating the Bible so that students can understand it. No one is presenting the gospel to an entire third of our world population.
And for months I have been struggling with trying to discern whether or not this desire to leave and to go international was just something from myself in an attempt to get away from a city I didn't want to live in, or if this was a true calling from God. But throughout all of convo, I was repeatedly given a sense of reassurance and relief that this is not something I want to do. This is something God wants me to do. And being able to finally know that is a God-given desire is such a relief and has removed so much internal stress from my life.
I feel I am rambling now, so maybe I should be done.
In peace,
Emily E.
