Mission Update Week 1 - A Call to Vulnerability

It’s Happening!

Wowza! I cannot believe my first week as a missionary has come and gone already. The Lord’s goodness has been indescribable, as I have made our missionary base, Big Woods, my new home here in Louisiana! Praise the Lord for the BIGGEST training (Intake) in FMC history so far. In total, there are 60+ of us new missionaries going through formation together as we entrust our lives to the Lord! There are about 6 families, 13 single women, four single men, and over 30 missionary kids within the families! It is safe to say Big Woods this year is full of joy, love, and fire for the Lord. Living with the other women has shown me just how amazing the Lord is. So many of the girls here blow me away with their gifts. We have one that is beautiful at playing the guitar, one who is from India, one who makes me laugh until my belly hurts, a handful that worship the Lord beautifully with their singing voices, another who paints, one who does sketching, the list goes on! I am blown away by the beauty of the people here. It’s normal here at FMC if a mom hands you their newborn as she goes to get her other kids to sit down and pray. I found myself holding a precious baby as we sang worship as a community together and couldn’t help but see my nephews’ precious faces in this little baby.

The schedule has consisted of me waking up at 7 a.m., getting to the chapel to pray in front of Jesus by 7:20, eat breakfast by 8, have morning prayer together with all the other missionaries, families and their kids, and then participate in different talk series throughout the day while hearing the leadership teams’ testimonies. Before and after lunch there are also given times for us to reflect in silent prayer to ourselves and to share in small groups. By dinnertime, an energy overwhelms the Big House because worship music usually comes later in the evening and time for each of the other girls and I to get to know each other in community!

A week ago though, I had a very difficult Sunday. My parents and sister Samantha drove me to the airport in California to say goodbye. Towards the end of this summer I was holding back my emotions. In the deepest corners of my soul I was sad and when we grabbed all my luggage and I hugged my sister, the tears started flowing. In all honesty, I wasn’t excited to leave and fly miles away from home after spending a beautiful and blessed summer with my family. So, I not only carried with me two pieces of luggage on my flight last week, but I was also carrying with me a weight, a huge wall of fear my first full day. More specifically, these fears being 1.) The fear that the Lord would not take care of me if I were ever to get sick and 2.) The fear of loneliness.

Day 1

Last Monday, (September 10th), was Day 1 of Intake. All I could think about that morning of prayer in the chapel was how distracted I was and how scared I am if I ever were to get sick in the mission field. I simply couldn’t hand over my fears to the Lord, I held on to them as tightly as a crutch. Because I felt like I was going through the motions, I went to bed asking, “Lord, I want to hand these fears over to you. Please tear down my walls.”

Day 2

The next morning we got into the grind of our schedule right away, being assigned our chore team groups, meeting with everyone, and me doing my best to soak everything in. After lunch, though, my stomach begun to sear with shooting pain. At first, I thought it was because I had some dairy for breakfast, but hours persisted in the afternoon and the pain wouldn’t go away. Next thing I know, I am rushing to the bathroom every 20 minutes, very sick. Of course, my immediate reaction was wishing I could grab my phone and call my parents (we have limited phone use and only can personally use our phones for 2 hours every Sunday). My emotions became heightened, I scrunched myself into a ball and crying on my top bunk-bed thinking nothing else but my family. I couldn’t help but let my mind go to the worst, “You should just get on a flight back home tonight.” The more I kept thinking these thoughts, the more I seemed to recognize it was Satan getting in my head trying to convince me I am too weak to serve the Lord as a missionary. That same night was also our Cajun fun night where all 60+ of us missionaries went to a park, listened to a band, and ate alligator. I unfortunately had to stay back that night. It became clearer than ever what the missionaries meant by “all you have at the end of the day is the Lord.” No phone. No soup or crackers. Nothing but the Lord. And what a beautiful blessing that was.

Day 3

I woke up the next morning feeling rejuvenated. I let myself get rest and was taken care of by the other girls, moms and families constantly. I truly was being comforted, looked after, and loved. I endured the rest of the afternoon, even listened in on all the talks and small group sharing. For dinner, though, we had alligator leftovers, which is prepared in spicy sauces. It was my mistake to eat it that night because I still hadn’t gotten over the aggressive flu I was fighting. Once again, I was rushing to the bathroom for hours. This time, I felt broken and defeated. The other missionaries found me curled up in my bed and immediately prayed over me as a group. One of the moms took it upon herself to find me and talk through with me how I was feeling with her. At that point I didn’t even care about how sick I was, I just felt like Satan had convinced me that I was worthless, useless, and nothing but a waste for this call to missions life. Although I was suffering and felt like the Devil had a hold on me, I kept calling on the Lord and imagining Him holding me like a Father holds his little girl.

Day 4

When I got up in the morning I felt like the Lord was incredibly present with me and holding me. I went to the chapel and the handful of times I prayed and found myself trying to reflect on Scripture I heard the Lord ask me to stop reading and to just let Him hold and love me. I could have sat in that chapel for hours, not saying any words of prayer, but just offering my presence to Him.

As I sat there and let Him romance me, I saw the full picture of how He was working in my heart the last couple days. I recalled my first night and asking Him to break down all my walls and to make me vulnerable. And let me tell you, I had to learn that you can’t get too embarrassed about your body getting sick when you share a bathroom with 6 other girls. So many of the girls kept thanking me for how I handled the suffering of the illness because my vulnerability allowed them to break down their walls too.

As I sat in God’s presence in our little chapel, I thanked Him and praised Him for the suffering. I praised Him for allowing me to get sick so none of the other girls had to experience what I encountered. I thanked the Lord for allowing me to be the first to tear down my walls, to be the lamb with the broken legs for others. I still right now praise the Lord for answering my prayers. His voice keeps echoing in my heart, “Kellie, you asked me to tear down your walls. I saw these fears. Did you not believe your Father, who is Love and created you could care for you at your darkest moment? I heard your desire to be made vulnerable, and I wanted to take care of these fears today. Not in a week, halfway through training, or at the end, but now. Daughter, I love you. Now, just sit in my presence and allow me to overflow my Love into your heart. All I ask is that you accept, nothing more.”

Praise You Lord

The first few crazy days of being a missionary definitely was not what I expected, but it has been the most blessed I have ever been. Since getting over the flu, I have just been asking the Lord to never stop opening my heart and giving me the grace to let Him Love me with His perfect Love. When the Lord first called me to missions, I vowed to Him I would never refuse His perfect Love or will for my life, even if it meant me not understanding. I decided to look back at my journal entry months ago before I was accepted from FMC and found comfort in what I wrote:

I just poured my heart out to my spiritual director about how Satan seems to be attacking my desire to be a missionary. I feel like the Devil is filling me with fear that I am weak and not strong enough for this work. He asked me, ‘Kellie, why do you want to be a missionary?’ What. A. Soul. Question. I responded, ‘The only way I know how to answer that is with a question, Father: Why do I love Jesus?’ I continued to share with him this: ‘It’s like God has imprinted His fingerprint in the most intimate spaces of my body that I cannot ignore this desire as a missionary. I can’t run away from the imprint, nor can I hide from this call…and I’d like to think it has a name…my soul. The very essence of what makes me ME. Jesus’ desire for me to be a missionary I believe is a call He uniquely made for me. And now, I’m ready to do His will…I’m in Love deeply with the Lord, but Love goes beyond the self. I am ready to go out, be sent, and tell people about the Love that transformed me and healed me.’

As I am here, a week completed as a missionary and living out the very dream I had prayed about for years, I am ready to encounter every gift that comes with missions; the community, the prayer formation, the emotional pain, the healing, the worship, the outpouring of God the Father’s abounding Love, the crying, the sharing, the giving, the taking, the storms, and the glories, the serving, the feeding, the dying to myself in order for the Lord to increase. I am ready for it all. No matter the cost, because no sacrifice is too great for the Love of God. He is worthy of all my Love. So I praise You Lord for this first week of training.

Thank you family and friends for all your support! I pray for you every day in our chapel here at Big Woods. Let me know if you have intentions I can lift up for you. This next week our training will be focusing on healing, so keep me in your thoughts and prayers as well. I pray you allow the Lord to pour His perfect Love into your life and overflow you with an abundance of joy!

In Christ,

Kellie