Looking back at my spiritual development, I see the pattern of a missionary in the making. During a church trip to Juarez, Mexico to build houses, one of the men we were building with asked my minister where I came from in Mexico. I was a lifeguard that summer and very tan, but my minister laughed and said I was not Mexican, but from Missouri. I realized for the first time I could fit into another culture if I tried. This opened up the entire world to me and meant I did not have to grow up with a cookie cutter life that looked exactly like every other person in my suburban Saint Louis church, high school and even my own family.
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| Me & 2 big brothers (Doug & Dave) |
To call my upbringing culturally limited is an understatement since my nearly rural high school had 2,400 kids and more than 90% were white. This was the only reality I knew until I moved to Southern California for my senior year of high school and was in the 20% minority of white students in a school of over 4,000. I experienced fierce culture shock and went from being a varsity athlete and editor the school newspaper to sleeping or reading my bible through class to pass time and to keep myself from crying all day. I made it through the semester I needed to go away to college early and at 17 years old I moved across the country to Abilene Christian University in west Texas. I would come home for long holidays, but I often felt like a stranger in a foreign land. Leaving my little Christian bubble that was my university back into the “real world.”
I was actually a youth ministry major my first semester in college, then after realizing my passion for ministry would not sustain me through advanced Greek and other advanced biblical studies courses, I knew it was time to seek another path. The day that I realized I did not have to major in a biblical studies concentration and I could still share and teach people about Christ was the day my heart found its calling as a missionary.
What kind of missionary was still up for debate. It took a few more months of searching for what and where I wanted to serve God, but I finally shut up and listened to what God was trying to show me through my passions and gifts. Becoming a medical doctor meant starting college over again, since most of the freshman year biochemistry classes are not consistent with freshman year youth ministry major’s courses. No one in my family is a doctor and neither of parents has gone to college, but they were not surprised when I told them about my decision. Instead they said “We always knew you would end up as a doctor or a lawyer, you were always so good at telling people what you think and getting them to agree with you.”
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| Wedding Day. |
Only a few months after this major life shift, I met Jared who was also pre-med. Fast-forward though 2 years of college, graduation, and our wedding. The first 6 weeks of our marriage was spent in Africa where we lived with a missionary doctor in Kampala, Uganda. We travelled with her doing mobile clinics in rural Uganda and Zambia. The most amazing part was that she let us become a part of her church, her medical practice as well as the people and culture she loved so dearly. This was the period of my spiritual walk when God said, “Look around you, this is what your heart has been waiting to see. This is what I want for you, this is where you are at home.”
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| Honeymoon…Kampala, Uganda |
I remember telling Jared one night while we lay under a mosquito net in our friends spare bedroom in Kampala, “I think God wants us to live if Africa,” and my sweet husband quietly said “I think so too.” It was one of those surreal moments when you realize your entire life just shifted in another direction.
Since then there are been so many life affirming moments and experiences. When things get particularly difficult or cause a lot of emotional strain, I often remind myself that God is preparing us to be medical missionaries and I have to get used to crazy,
unpredictable life events.