you know you need to go somewhere because something is waiting for you or someone you have no idea exist but someone you’re supposed to meet will also be there? As if a place could call you, beckon you to it and you—with no real idea as to why, responds with some fear and hesitation but non the less responds. Silly or fanatical as that may sound, I am a firm believer in this and I have a feeling that this– is one of those moments.
I’m going to be completely candid and tell you that I wasn’t necessarily the biggest fan of mission trips. I thought they invalidated how God could be moving in other places without us having to be there, I felt bothered by the missions culture and the savior mentality — I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. And yet, I remember the moment I sat in church and first heard about the trip to thailand, how they interact with women who have experienced the unthinkable, who haven’t heard that they are valuable past a price tag and what they can offer with their own bodies. I remember hearing the stories of the women and men who had gone on the first trip and feeling something in my heart tug a little.
When the announcements approached for the second round of the trip, the tug returned. So I attended the first meeting and the tug was not the most prominent thing i felt—what was most prominent was the fear. I have altitude sickness, will I be able to handle a 20 hour flight? What if I can’t eat any of the food there? How am I going to afford this? Fear came stampeding in, the anxiety came with it and yet still my spirit felt the tug, everything in me just knew: I am meant to go on this trip. After watching the video about the first trip, I remember thinking that I wanted to just meet every woman in there so I could just tell them that they’re beautiful and enough and worthy of a love bigger than they could ever imagine. I wanted to squeeze every child and hope that it wasn’t for the last time. I’m not going to bring Jesus, I’m going to find him.
After the second meeting where the team introduced ourselves to one another, with tears in my eyes I answered the question asking what we were most worried about for the trip and I responded with everything. I told them I know that my spirit is saying yes but everything else is telling me no. And then I realized how much opposition was already against me only because that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be doing: going to thailand this summer. I am not going to be comfortable or familiar, I’m taking my cape off, I am going to experience God in a way I’ve never experienced him before. I’m not going to save people, I want to hear stories, collect them and store them in my heart so that I never forget them.
The trip is this summer from June 27-July 6, 2017 we will be visiting schools, teaching english, interacting with women in the districts and partnering with local missionaries who are already doing such great work in the area.
However this letter may have sounded before…I am trulysoexcited to be going on this trip, my heart is expectant and I’ve been trying to tend to my soul a little bit more intentionally to prepare for what it will hold.
If you would like to be part of this journey with me and support me either financially or in prayer (need a lot of both) please do! I will be making sure that I am avidly writing about the experience of course through both poems and blogs when possible.
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