Proverbs 16:9 | Amelia to Mexico
God’s Faithfulness Through GEM
One of the most incredible attributes of God is that he is never not faithful. Really. He is constant, an ever assured rock where we as believers are founded. God is never not faithful to be loving, to be gracious, to set his purpose into place, and to reveal his glory. He even is faithful to use us for his divine purpose. Humans. He wants us to be vessels for him. I mean, a God that is so perfect, choosing sinners to further his kingdom? Kinda crazy. To add to the crazy, when we are in constant relationship with him, we become more like him. When we choose to follow his path of righteousness, we too can become more faithful to what he commands. It’s a beautiful thing that he calls us to be divine, to be holy like him. I have never been more reminded of his faithfulness, his steadfastness, than when I visited Puerto Escondido.
Being given the opportunity to know the staff and students at Manantial is one that I keep close to my heart. The Lord has been so faithful to plan the steps of each staff member of this precious school. The students see glimpses of Jesus every day because of what they see in their teachers. As soon as you step through the white gate into the school, the atmosphere is so spirit filled. I can’t describe to you the encouragement and joy and peace that anyone can feel in that place. I can only attribute it to faith. The labor that staff members have put into this school has definitely not gone in vain. God is using education, a privilege that some of these children might not have if it weren’t for GEM, to reveal himself. These children are such sweet blessings. Each one so unique, bringing their own talents to make this school even more special. I really cannot speak enough words to say just how much Manantial is doing and how faithful God has been to make the school flourish. Seriously. Pray for the school, sponsor a child, visit Puerto (also because tacos and the beach!), serve alongside GEM, and be faithful to see God’s story played out in this beautiful place.
“But thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:57-59
Sara Smith has volunteered with GEM in Puerto twice, and she is a treasured part of our support team!
MARRIAGE, MEXICO, AND MINEFIELDS: THE JOY OF FOLLOWING JESUS INTO THE UNKNOWN
“God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.” – A.W. Tozer
CHANGE: WRESTLING WITH THE UNKNOWN
If there is one thing in my life that I consistently struggle with, it’s changed.
Six years ago, I moved away from my family in south Georgia for college in Virginia. At the time I was 21 years old. I had never been away from my family for more than 2 months. Moving away was incredibly frightening. In my case, change meant moving 8 hours away from friends that I had invested in over 21 years of my life. Change meant a lot of new, uncertain things in my life. For a person used to safety and comfort, this was very difficult. It meant that I was moving into a new setting where I was the outsider, the new kid. Yet, I knew God was leading me away from where I had been for 21 years to grow and live independently from my family. What I didn’t know at the time was that change was soon to become the mantra of my life. I had no idea that God was going to use the thing I hated the most to shape and refine me, day-by-day, moment-by-moment.
Tim Chester says, “Change is a lifelong, daily struggle that will end with an eternal harvest of holiness.”
God uses change in our lives, good and bad, to refine us and shape us into the image of Jesus, bringing us into fuller joy.
REDEEMING THE UNKNOWN
In my own life, God has used change in several ways to shape and refine me. In college, I was forced to stand on my own. I was taught through the unknown transition into adulthood that God can be trusted in all circumstances. Because of my experiences in college I came to understand the church with deeper clarity and conviction. I learned that God does not only intend for us to show up once a week to a building to hear his word preached but that the church is his body – a people redeemed by Jesus sent into the world to be his witnesses. I learned that the church isn’t a place at all – it’s a people. I learned that God calls me to worship every single day, not just on Sundays. I learned that the church is this messy, broken, redeemed, beautiful, healed people trying to live in light of the truth and that we have been declared righteous by God through faith in Jesus.
God was also revealing to me that discipleship was much more than just one on one meeting or a bible study. Rather, discipleship is submitting all of our lives to the Lordship of Jesus. Jeff Vanderstelt writes,
“Discipleship—learning to follow, trust, and obey Jesus in the everyday stuff of life—requires submitting to and obeying God’s Word in three key environments: life on life, where our lives are visible and accessible to one another; life in community, where more than one person is developing another; and life on mission, where we experience making disciples and, while doing so, come to realize how much we need God’s power.”
Ultimately God used my time in Lynchburg to grow me and help me to see the beauty of who Jesus is and who He is making me to be. I have found Proverbs 16:9 to be fittingly and sometimes frustratingly true – “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”
MARRIAGE
Recently, another life change occurred: I married my beautiful wife, Kristen. Marriage, more than anything else, has already been one of the most difficult, joyful, sanctifying realities in my life.
God’s grace is at work, transforming us as we navigate these recent changes together.
Marriage is messy. My wife sees my life for what it is and I see the same in her. This is what makes it so amazing! God is in the works of changing us—through marriage—to His likeness.
Paul Tripp reminds us that God uses spouses as tools of change.
“When your ears hear and your eyes see the sin, weakness, or failure of your husband or wife, it is never an accident; it is always grace. God loves your spouse, and he is committed to transforming him or her by his grace, and he has chosen you to be one of his regular tools of change.”
God is redeeming the difficulties in marriage to transform us. He is using our transition into marriage as a means of changing us. He is using the sin, brokenness, selfishness, and mess as tools of change for the sake of His name.
MEXICO
When Kristen and I were dating, we often dreamed of what our future would look like, where we would be, and who we would be serving. We had plans to settle in Virginia (quite comfortably) for a season before we would eventually move to Portland, Oregon to be a part of a church planting team for the sake of Jesus’ name being made known in the Pacific Northwest. However, God had different plans. Again, Proverbs 16:9,
“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”
My wife was recently attending a local fair for teaching jobs when one particular school seemed to stand out. This school is called Centro Educativo el Manantial (CEM). This is not your normal, American public school. This is an English immersion school that is found in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. It was started by an organization called Global Education Ministries. When Kristen first told me about this, I remember thinking, “there is no way we are moving to Mexico!” Why would I want to go to Mexico? We already had a great plan! We had a safe plan. We had a comfortable plan. We had a plan that required minimal change. We would stay put for a couple of years and then move to Portland.
So we prayed. And prayed. And we sought wise council and deliberated with friends. Finally, after much consideration, wisdom, and prayer, we can say with confidence that the Lord is leading us to follow Him to a country neither of us knows, in an area we are unfamiliar with, and in a way we never could have expected. Six months after being married, we are about to embark on the biggest adventure of our lives. Here is what we are learning – God calls us into unfamiliar situations that require us to obey and trust in His faithfulness.In light of all of this, we have committed to two years in Puerto Escondido, Mexico for the Glory of His Name! We are very excited about how the Lord will use this in our lives to grow us, mold us, draw us closer to Him. We are equally excited to see how He uses us to lift up the name of Jesus in Mexico!
PURSUING JESUS IN THE MINEFIELDS OF CHANGE
If there was going to be anything I’ve learned through all these changes it is this: Jesus is worthy of all our time, possessions, decisions, and personal desires. Psalm 103:2-5 gives us a beautiful picture of our God and who He is to us.
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
Nothing else in this world will give the satisfaction that Jesus offers. He is good and there is no one like Him. We were created by and for Him. It doesn’t matter if you are living in the states or in another country, God desires that you seek him with your whole heart. He has given his church a command: to make disciples of all nations. Therefore, all of us have a mission and that mission is to love and serve your neighbors, co-workers, classmates, roommates, spouses, and those you encounter on a daily basis. That mission may lead us into uncomfortable situations and deep into the unknown, but there is so much joy in following Him. Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” If Jesus, in joy, endured the cross, how much more can we, with joy, seek Him and follow Him wherever he leads us? He is our joy, our treasure, our hope.
There are a lot of unknowns when it comes to moving to Mexico. Where are we going to live? How are we going to raise enough money? What are we going to do with all of our stuff? It can be overwhelming thinking about all of these logistics, but there is beauty in following Jesus into these unknowns.
The less we know about our specific plans, the more we will be able to trust in God’s promises to keep and guide us. We have nothing to hold onto except for Jesus. What a joy it is to trust in His promises to take care of us!
God’s word tells us to follow Him regardless of the cost. Following Jesus will most likely take us through minefields of change. This means, we never know when some kind of change will happen in our life. We will continue to encounter change — sometimes to the extent to moving to another country. This will be a constant reality for the rest of our lives. The good news is – we can walk through minefields of change with an understanding that God is worthy of our trust. His name is worthy of our lives, regardless of the cost.
Daniel graduated from Liberty University with a B.S. in Communication (2011) and a Master’s of Divinity in Evangelism and Church Planting (2014). He will be serving as the Director of Communication for GEM. Kristen graduated in May 2016 with a B.S. in Elementary Education and will serve as the 4th-grade teacher at the Manantial School. They enjoy playing sports, eating good food with friends, and exploring with their wonderdog, Nala. Above all, they desire to make disciples by making Jesus known in Puerto and around the world. To read more posts on Daniel’s personal blog, click here.
The Month of May: Hotter Than Africa
My siblings and I always joked on the hottest summer days that it felt “hotter than Africa” outside. Africa was the hottest place we could think of and what place on earth could possibly hotter than Africa? Well, after 3 years of living in Puerto Escondido, I have determined that the month of May in Mexico is indeed, hotter than Africa.
Everyone knows that Mexico is a hot place. It is a tourist destination to millions every year and is known for its beautiful beaches, consistently sunny weather and giant cruise port cities. I grew up in hot and humid North Carolina. The heat was no stranger to me before moving here. However, I had never in my life experienced Mexican heat outside of the vacation bubble, where the breeze off the ocean is strong, the pool is close by and your room is air conditioned.
The dictionary defines heat in a couple of different ways: (1) the state of a body perceived as having or generating a relatively high degree of warmth; (2) the condition or quality of being hot; and (3) the degree of hotness, temperature. I am not sure which definition I agree with or if any of them define the type of heat I am currently drowning in as I write this.
Most of the year is bearable when it comes to the hot and humid weather. The nights cool off which lead to cooler mornings and sometimes there is a nice breeze to help you forget about how hot you are. The month of May brings a heat that is so fierce that it consumes you. All 365 days of the year here carry almost the exact same weather. I love a good change of seasons. There is no better feeling than those first cool fall days in October or flowers blooming in April with the promise of warmer weather. Puerto only permits one type of weather: 90 degrees and sunny. Everyday. All year. In December. Sometimes, in the middle of the night.
The month of May is dreaded by many as it approaches and hated by all once it is here. The air is heavier than ever has we wait for that first rain to fall to kick off a few months of rainy afternoons that give a much-needed break from the heat. The sun hits your skin and makes you feel like you’re living in an oven. Your sweat beads down your forehead, soaks any clothing that is remotely touching your skin and cascades down your legs like a waterfall.
There is not air conditioning to retreat to, the waves are typically huge this time of year, which limits your access to the water, and life goes on as usual. We have eaten out more than ever to avoid cooking over the stove and I have taken more showers than I thought humanly possible. I have been caught with my head stuck in the freezer more times than I would like to admit. My poor students sweat through their uniforms while solving multiplication problems at 9:00am and if you don’t have more than one fan pointed directly at you then you need to buy another fan. Also, who knew adults could get heat rash! I thought that heat rash was only for little kids until I moved here and it started showing up all over my body around this time of year.
I am fairly positive there is no cure for the physical pain and discomfort the month of May brings upon us here in Puerto. So, until the rain comes you will find me in front of a fan, with my head in the freezer, showering at 3am and praying those clouds will make an appearance over the mountain tops to drop the rain we have patiently been waiting for since it left us last October.
Sarah Hindin is from Charlotte, NC, where her wonderful family still resides. This is Sarah’s 3rd year serving with GEM in Puerto Escondido. She is an organizational wizard and her students love her more than anything! If you’d like to sponsor Sarah financially or via prayer, you can find her contact info here.
Three Reasons I Love Serving With GEM
It’s impossible to narrow my favorite things about GEM down to only three, but I will stick to just a few for the sake of this blog post. The first thing I absolutely love about working with Global Education Ministries is the incredible people who I work with each day. Jesus has faithfully brought together a group of genuine, selfless people who are really passionate about this ministry. Each morning we spend half an hour as a group in morning devotions. We pray for each other, encourage one another, and bless each other by digging into God’s word daily. Sometimes I have to stop myself in the middle of my day and remember how privileged I am to be serving with such an amazing family of believers who have the same motivation, which is Christ. It is all by God’s grace that this is my reality.
Another aspect of GEM that I love is that I have the opportunity to pour into my student’s spiritual lives on a daily basis. Education is an extremely important asset in today’s world and is a major priority at our school, but Global Education Ministries is also a completely gospel-centered organization. Personally, I believe a child’s faith is much more valuable than anything else in the world. The fact that we have an entire class period devoted to learning about God’s word each day is an incredible gift. In fact, integrating biblical truth into our education doesn’t stop there! If a child has a spiritual question in the middle of science class, we are able to stop, debrief and have a discussion that could change a child’s faith forever. With GEM, it isn’t just about them getting good grades or finishing a math test on time, it’s all about Jesus.
Last but not least, Global Education Ministries hasn’t just given me the chance to meet awesome teachers, but serving at our school has given me the opportunity to meet so many different individuals with different backgrounds; some who love Jesus, and some who were put in my life for the purpose of coming to know Him. GEM makes an effort to accept middle to low-income families as students at our school. This has given us the chance to partner with people who are in physical need but also with those who have never heard of the gospel. GEM doesn’t just seek to educate the rich or Christian population, but the low and the lost. This is such a beautiful thing!
Overall, I can confidently say that Jesus is using Global Education Ministries to transform the hearts of many. That is why I love it so much! As we faithfully serve with GEM, my prayer is that the world would continue to be changed bit by bit, all for the glory of the King.
– Natalia (Miss Nati)
Natalia has served with GEM for almost 2 years now as the Kinder 1 & 2 teacher. She loves music, art and bringing laughter to any situation. At the end of this school year, she will move back to Toronto, Canada to serve with the Children’s Ministry at her home church.
Tews to Mexico
We are very excited to join Global Education Ministries in August to begin the next phase of this journey of life that God has given us! The mission of GEM lines up exactly with the desires of our hearts! Serving and loving others to help them see the Father’s love is something we always want to be sure is the core of what we are doing!
It’s funny how we came to know about GEM. In 2014 Nate was on a flight to Haiti for a mission’s trip and sitting across the aisle was a semi-bald guy (maybe fully bald, depends on the angle and lighting…as well as the intentionality) who was reading the Bible, and as conversation was struck up he told Nate about this new school in Mexico that he and his wife started and how it was growing quickly. This guy is, of course, Casey Herring, who explained how they were fortunate to be a part of what God was doing in Puerto and how this school had been such a great tool to lead people to Jesus and to give quality education. With this great education, they were in need of more teachers so after hearing that Haley was in school for early childhood education, the seed was planted for us to come down and check the school out and what life in Puerto Escondido would look like. With that seed planted in the back of our brains, we had no idea how serious we would consider joining GEM two years later.
After we got married in July of 2015, all of our thoughts and plans for our near future were completely changed and God taught us what it means to trust Him solely. We learned that yes we make plans, but it’s The Lord who establishes our steps. After recently moving to Raleigh, NC, Nate has been working from home and was about to start a career in Real Estate while Haley was applying for teaching jobs in the public school system.
We both were praying about our next steps and what we should do but weren’t exactly sure what that was. One day recently, we talked about what we wanted to do and what we felt like God was putting in our hearts. Everything that we both described lined up together and the thought about GEM came to our minds. We lost contact with GEM and honestly couldn’t remember the name of the organization and how to get in touch with Casey but eventually did through a friend. After talking with Casey and Megan a few times and learning more about the school, the mission, and the staff we really prayed about what kind of commitment and huge life change this would be. We both had peace about it and have been excited about the opportunity!
We know this is a big change and we will miss our family and friends a lot, but we are excited to jump in with the staff and really become like a second family to each other and loving the students and their families! Though we can’t know exactly what to expect, we know our life will be centered around Jesus, the precious people in Puerto and the GEM community. We look forward to the hard times, rewarding and fun times, creepy bugs, the heat, the beach….and apparently amazing tacos!
Nathan and Haley Tew have been married for almost one year, and they are super excited about joining the GEM team in Puerto Escondido next fall! If you are interested in supporting them financially or with prayer, you can find their contact info here.
My Favorite Moments at El Manantial
August of 2015 began my journey in Mexico. It was only the second time I had traveled out of the country. The first time was just one month earlier when I went to Canada for missionary training. The idea of moving to another country was a little scary, but I had no doubt that God was calling me to serve with Global Education Ministries. I have been blessed by the experiences where God has shown His work in the school and in my life.
One of my favorite moments was a conversation I had with a parent of one of my students. After our Christmas play, the mom of the student (who portrayed Gabriel) came up to me and said that she was very thankful that her son had the opportunity to be in the play. She said that it was good for him. He is one of my students who knows a good amount about the Bible but doesn’t understand how real it is and how God can change his life. This is why it was a big deal for him to play the angel who shared with Mary and Joseph about the coming of Jesus.
The sweetest moment I’ve had with a student was during our VBS week. We had a church from Oregon come down and share Jesus with our students through crafts, memory verses, Bible stories and new worship songs. After the gospel message was shared with the fifth and sixth graders, the fifth-grade teacher and I stayed around to talk with any students who had questions. One of my girls asked me how we can know God is real. I was able to share with her how God directs each of our lives. I specifically shared with her how God 
brought me to Puerto to teach her. I was grateful that I could openly share with her about God’s desire to be a part of her life.
Our weekly chapel time has also been a part of some precious moments for me. After lunch on Fridays, we have the unique opportunity to worship God by singing, combined with hand motions for each song. What makes that time so precious is that I can stand alongside my sixth graders and the fifth graders and do the hand motions together. I love to see the pure joy in each kid’s face that you don’t often have the opportunity to see in class.
Being a first-year teacher in a foreign country has been challenging, but each of those memories I mentioned has made me so grateful that God chose to bring me to Puerto Escondido and the Manantial School. Conversations with parents, sharing gospel truths with students, and singing praises to God with young people are all reasons why my first year living and working in Puerto has been truly special. I hope you are encouraged by hearing how God has been working in my life through our school in Mexico!
Tracy Frohlich graduated from Erskine College, in South Carolina with a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology in 2013. She loves worshiping God through music and is excited about what the Lord will teach her through this unique opportunity in Puerto Escondido!
Tamales
I turned 30 the other day, and a fellow teacher at school, a Mexican, gave me two tamales since it was my birthday. They were savory, salty, substantial, succulent and very Mexican. And they got me to thinking about tamales.
So this is what a tamal (pronounced: /tah/ /mahl/) is. It is about a handful of wet corn meal mixture called “masa” (/mah/ /sah/). As best I can tell it’s mashed out into a thick patty and then the filling of the tamal is layed on. They can be filled with beans, cheese, chicken, pork, iguana, vegetables or any combination of these things or other delicacies. Then the masa is folded over the filling and the whole thing is wrapped tightly in a banana leaf. This is one tamal. A bunch of these are “tamales” (/tah/ /mah/ /less/). They can also sometimes before the leaf is wrapped on be covered in salsa or mole. Mole is like a really dark, rich, thick, spicy, sweet, salty, gravy type sauce. So there are mole tamales and verde tamales. The verde tamales are covered inside and out with green salsa. They can be so hot and spicy that your nose runs the second it hits your tongue and your eyeballs melt. Or they can be so mild that you could eat 100 of them.
Eating a tamal is very messy. At least, for me it is. You have to lay it down, unwrap the leaf and consume the wet, whimsical and saucy food item. You can use your fingers or a fork. I use a fork. You leave the tamal laying in the leaf while you eat it. When I eat this treat I have sauce on my fingers, elbows, face, nose and hair. Don’t ask me how. I always set out to be as clean as possible but by the second bite, I am ruined so I just abandon caution and devour. For a Mexican, eating a tamal is not messy. A Mexican person will eat a tamal and you will never know that they have done so from looking at them. They deftly unwrap it, efficiently eat it, and quickly dispatch the remaining banana leaf.
Mexican women make tamales in their houses and sell them in a word-of-mouth unofficial, casual small business venture. They sell them on street corners out of big basins covered in a towel. They are sold at counters in the markets where people sit on stools and eat them. Other señoras carry them in buckets in their hand or in tubs on their head and walk around neighborhoods calling, “¡Tamales! ¡Verde, de mole, de chepil!”.
But tamales are not just common. They are also special. And this, to me, is the most intriguing characteristic of the tamal. It is both normal and extraordinary. Mundane and celebratory. Boring and exciting. Purchased on a corner and ingested instantly while you wait for a bus that is about to take you to Oaxaca city. Ordered in quantities of hundreds two weeks in advance and presented to relatives in a backyard on Christmas Eve. They are prepared and served and gifted in mass when babies are born, at funerals, at Christmas, on birthdays, and at weddings. Hence, I was given tamales on my birthday. And they were very good.
Tamales are a lot like Mexico. On the surface, they are very simple, not special, unremarkable, easy to understand. But these visible qualities are only a curtain behind which the true nature and essence of the thing is hidden. At a glance, it is just this weird thing people eat in a few minutes when they have a break from working. But through your friends you find out that they are revered as something to be hoped for and anxiously awaited once a year. They are just tamales. It is just Mexico, the country that borders the United States to the South. Illegal immigrants. Cartels. Violence. Donkeys. Roosters. Sombreros. Belt buckles. Moustaches. Music with lots of brass. Tacos. But pull back the curtain and behold a Grand Canyon of complexity. People that would rather die themselves than see a child in discomfort. True believers in Jesus with earnestness to their faith distinct from many Americans. Daily practices that are unintelligible to Americans but have a perfectly sound, valid and vital purpose in the lives of Mexicans. Behaviors that have their origins in cultures older than the United States.
I like tamales.
-Faircloth
Jason Faircloth currently teaches 2nd grade at the Manantial School in Puerto Escondido. Jason and his wife, Kate, and son, Abraham, have lived in Puerto Escondido for almost 3 years now serving with Global Education Ministries. You will typically find Jason with a coke and bag of Frito’s in hand.
Moser’s to Mexico!
Since moving to Wilmington, NC in 2010, Mauri and I have been sensing that God brought us here to be prepared for full-time vocational ministry. God led us to Crossway Chapel where our hearts have been molded and shaped through faithful teaching, training, and fellowship. Over the past few years, we have also heard stories and testimony of the ministry happening in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. As we were humbled by and instructed in the scriptures, and as the call to full-time ministry grew in our hearts, Mauri and I began to fast and pray.
In January of 2016, after a month of intense prayer and discernment, the Lord made clear to us His calling for our family. My (Rob’s) role in Mexico will be School Counselor and 7th Grade Bible Teacher. Mauri will be assisting part-time with administration and recruiting for the school, while also caring for our 5 children at home.
In June of last year, we adopted three children, who joined our two biological children in what we now call “Moser Nation.” The kids have been so inspiring, as God has answered our prayers for Him to place this call on their hearts as well. We have seen them, without encouragement from us, say they think we should go and preach the gospel to the people there.
One of our older sons prayed one night at bedtime, “God, will you help us to know if we should stay and preach the gospel here or go and preach the gospel in Mexico.” He said to me as I was leaving the room, “Daddy, I think God wants us to preach the gospel in Mexico!” On the same evening, our other oldest son said, “Daddy, it’s going to be hard, but I think it’s the right thing to do.” God answered our prayers in placing this on all of our kids’ hearts, and we believe strongly that God is sending our family to Mexico to love His people there and share the gospel of salvation in Christ.
Jesus has been so faithful to us and has blessed this process with countless examples of His positioning for this new ministry opportunity! Our hope is to see many in Puerto baptized in the name of Christ and to build up His church there. It’s going to be an adventure, but His adventures are the best adventures!
The Moser clan will set out for Mexico towards the end of July. They are currently raising finances to support their move. If you would like to join their prayer and support team, please email Rob at rwmose@gmail.com
The Walking In Between
Sometimes the most captivating parts of a story are not the mountaintops. Not the end results. Not the final product. But, simply, as Ben Rector so eloquently states it, “the walking in between.”
Right now God has given me a mountaintop. To do what I love, teach in a school filled with God’s love, in a land filled with stunning beaches and majestic mountains. I have been blessed. And not that every moment is easy or bursting with laughter, but He shows me His goodness so evidently even in the hard times.
Today I want to share a story, for words in the form of stories have always left me feeling a little more inspired. A little more ready to conquer the world for Christ. This story is not about a special moment with one of the students or watching a parent come to faith. It is merely how God can use a place of confusion and unrest to show His children the most wonderful plan of all. His.
Growing up in a Christian home and attending Christian school since the 5th grade, meant that the idea of missions was not a crazy concept. Family members were missionaries in Japan and Spain, and the real life visual of sacrificing your life for Christ was something that I strived to achieve. But, there was always a part of me that yearned for the comfortable, for the white picket fence kind of life. And now I truly realize that it’s a marvelous thing that God knows us better than we know ourselves.
Let’s go back to March 24, 2015. In my planner, for every type A teacher has one, there was a U.S. History test due online, and Jury Duty written in big bold letters. Having read every John Grisham novel, I was excited for the prospect of being involved in a thrilling courtroom experience. Listed a little below my excited bolded print was…Teacher Recruitment Fair. A required event for all seniors in the education program. God had blessed me with an amazing host teacher (thank you, Mrs. Smith if you are reading this!), and I had put all my hopes into securing a position at that elementary school. My true thoughts about the job fair…I didn’t need those awkward conversations! Obviously, God had other plans.
Short story even shorter, that morning I called the Jury Duty number, and as you can now guess, my presence was not required. A quick change from semi-professional attire to “I want to teach at your school” attire, and my best friend and I were ready to hand out some resumes. Fast forward two hours and many (actually very exciting) conversations later, we were on our way out the door. Ten feet from fresh air and lunch waiting for us at Panera Bread, an enthusiastic voice penetrated my thoughts, “Have you ever thought about teaching overseas?!” Seven simple words that changed my life.
I like to think that if I had never paused to hear about Global Education Ministries at that teacher fair, or if my jury duty hadn’t been canceled that morning, God still would have directed my path to Mexico.
Because He has a plan. A plan that is greater than we can ever ask for or imagine. A plan that may involve killing tarantulas in your bathroom, or getting in the wrong taxi and having to walk an embarrassing extra 15 minutes home. But it also involves getting sweaty hugs goodbye after a school day, and loving people you never would have had the privilege to meet.
So, the “walking in between.” Those days that seem mindless and discouraging. When you are waiting for the mountaintop and the start of an incredible adventure, remember, the first step of an adventure is often times the most important. It requires determination, patience, and an excitement for the unknown. The first step requires the adventurer to say, “Here I am, send me.”
Sarah Quigg graduated from Liberty University in 2015 with a B.S. in Special Education. She loves running and growing closer to God while exploring His creation! We are so happy to have her on the team, teaching 5th grade.