Hi friends!
Wow, this is so exciting! I’ve never written a blog before so we’re just gonna see how it goes. To start off i’ll tell you what i’m doing and what brought me here. If I haven’t told you already I will be going on a 3 month missions trip with the World Race organization to the countries of Ecuador and Brazil. I will be leaving on August 30th and returning Nov 23rd, and as you can imagine I have a lot to do to prepare for a trip like this which will include two weeks of training in the state of Georgia, but first I want to share more of my heart with you. If you know me then you know that I love people and serving others and traveling as well. When I was in high school I got the opportunity to go on three short term missions trips that were super transformative to my life and opened a passion to serve even more! At one point I wanted to be a missionary nurse, while I never pursued nursing school I still had and have the desire to do missions in my life. In 2020 I was set to go on a missions trip before I graduated high school, I had plans to attend a one year discipleship program that fall that also included a few short term missions trips all of which were canceled due to the corona virus. In my head and heart I felt like these opportunities were taken away from me, so I tucked those dreams away and instead got a job as a barista and that became my new focus, I felt very established in my job when a new opportunity came the following year to attend the discipleship program but I turned it down. I thought that missions would never be something I’d do again even though deep down I knew it would always be something I wanted to do again in my life. Fast forward the fall of 2024, I had very little hope or expectations for my life and was settling for what was in front of me, ( I’ve been a barista for almost 5 years and I love it) but I have always wondered if there was something more for me out there. I was feeling discouraged when I had a conversation with my brother and he was encouraging me, asking me what I wanted to do with my life, what my passions were, and what opportunities might God have for me? The first thing that came to my mind was that i’d love to be a mom and have a family, but until that happens I would love to do missions work again. I loved the trips I went on in high school, I was raised to love and serve with the heart of Jesus, both my mom and dad have set amazing examples of being the hands and feet of Jesus and serving others. Serving others has been something I have loved for a long time and my job has been a great way to me to serve people and be light in this dark world, BUT I want to do more, I want to go and love, serve, and share the amazing grace of God’s love and free gift of forgiveness. Which is how I got here, I looked into a couple different organizations and chose to pursue a trip with the World Race organization. This trip will be much longer and more stretching of a trip I have ever experienced but I am confident that the Lord has brought me to this place for a reason. I love the Lord and I want to let it be known not only by my words but my life too. During the past few years my faith and trust in Jesus has been very weak and small, I found it difficult to give Jesus time, to focus in church or even singing worship music. I felt so distant from the felt presence of the Lord and felt it difficult to trust Him with the smallest of things. I had a hard time admitting it for a long time, but I knew that Jesus knew my heart and in this season He was still there . In the past few months I have started to notice my hard heart softening and opening up to the Lord again. One of my hopes for this trip is for my faith and trust in the Lord to strengthened and deepened by the Holy Spirit and trust in Him and the good work that the He has already started in me (phil 1:6). I want to go because I believe that as a follower of Jesus this is something I am called to, I believe that God has given me a gift of service, love, and compassion that I want to use for His glory. I want to go and make disciples (matt 28:19), to wash feet, and to share how God has worked in my life even when I have pushed Him away. I am confident that the Lord will fulfill His purpose for me (Ps 138:8)!
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I can’t wait to continue to update you on all the work that the Lord is already doing and will continue to do in my life! Keep an eye out for more blog posts and fundraisers that I’ll be having
In Christ, Mikayla
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