March 29, 2005

• for the rest of my life:  my testimony, part 2 (click here for part 1)

  
  

   

  
  

  The first few months for me of being a Christian were both exciting and frustrating.  I felt like I couldn’t get to know God fast enough.  Friday night youth group fellowship and Sunday worship service seemed too few and far in between.  How can I get to know God faster, I wondered.  And then one day, Pastor Ron said something brilliant.  He said, “You should be reading the Bible everyday…”  Whoah.  I had never thought of doing that!  So from that day on, I set to reading a chapter a day, starting with Matthew.  Those were the glory days – the first time I ever read the Bible.  Wow, gives me warm fuzzies thinking about it.  It was so wonderful getting to meet Jesus face to face through the Word for the very first time!

  
  

   

  
  

  One of the biggest helps for me in my early Christian days came in the special friendship-gift of Sam.  Samantha, this sister who had been going to this church since she was a kid, and I became fast friends.  We were both hungry to know Him… and she really helped me understand God as a dynamic Being… we would read the same thing in the Word and experience it come alive to us, and we would pray with him and converse with one another like we were on a 3-way call… it was so natural and so fun!

  
  

   

  
  

  Senior year in high school, Pastor Ron left our church and we went through a bit of tumult.  The core group of the youth group were determined:  No backsliding!  We were gonna take ownership of the youth group and NOT fall away just because our pastor left.  (These people in the core group are STILL my friends today, still living for God and doing amazing things for Him.)  I believe this was a critical growth-moment for me in my Christian journey.  From this time, I began to serve others and lead others (learning as I went!).  I was still as baby of a Christian as it gets but was serving and encouraging others to walk with Him.  It was the very thing I was eager to do because I was completely in love with the Lord and wanted others to be the same.

  
  

   

  
  

  Freshman year in college, I took on the role of a youth advisor for the youth group… leading Bible studies, and taking care of the girls… It was the spring of my frosh year that I was driving Mary, one of the youth girls, home that I said to her, “I could do this for the rest of my life.”  She & I both knew that I didn’t mean driving her home!  I meant serving God and investing in people.  She asked me, “What would your parents say?”  “What about money??”  all these questions.  I had no answers because I really hadn’t thought about it.  It just came out of my mouth spontaneously as if the Spirit had planted the words in my mouth.

  
  

   

  
  

  The next morning I talked it over with God.  And He kept coming back to me with the words, “Trust me.”  I kept saying, “What about…” And he’d come back with those two words over and over again.  And finally, He gave me “James 1:12″.  James 1:12??  I didn’t even know what that verse said, so I went to go look it up. I was amazed to find that the verse perfectly answered my heart’s troubles/questions  …essentially, He was saying, “It’s not gonna be easy, Mary Ann, but it’s gonna be worth it.”  Whoah.

  
  

   

  
  

  I’d say this was when I got God’s “specific call” for me to serve Him in a full-time capacity.  Up til that point, I had thought of all of my life as belonging to God but the “career” thing was a separate thing that didn’t belong to Him.  So this was surrender.

  
  

   

  
  

  The rest of college was wrestling with the call…. what does it really mean?  Repeatedly, He asked me if I would be willing to go “anywhere”… and we went over many possibilities of what “anywhere” would mean.  I had to lay down a lot of dreams, desires, insecurities, fears, and longings for securities.  It was a hard journey. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Sam and Pam became significant factors in my discussion with God about my calling in life.  They had become my best friends.  We were kindred spirits – one in heart about passions, dreams and service to God.  It was FUN to be friends with them and fun to dream with them and put those dreams into action (much of which were crazy ministry adventures!).  It wasn’t long before we three were called the PMS sisters.  (No, not because we have attitude, but because of our initials:  P.M.S. )  They had both felt called to missions since they were younger.  And their passions to go overseas influenced me in a major way…

  
  

   

  
  

  Isaiah 6 also played a huge role in this discussion.  It was from this passage that I realized that God was looking for someone to be his prophet, his messenger.  He said, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?”  He was looking for volunteers.  But why would I want to volunteer myself?  Well, no one who has truly seen their sins, seen the glory of God and been redeemed by Him would ask that question.  You just can’t help it.  Redemption is soo sweet that the only possible response is to volunteer yourself to do whatever God would want!  And that’s exactly what I did.  I think it was from this that I received the “general” call for missions.  I wanted to go. 

  
  

   

  
  

  In college, I got involved with the Navigator ministry, which equipped me – not just in a theoretical sense but in practical application.  Through the ministry, I got used to the idea of sharing the gospel with others.  I experienced some amazing things during college – including seeing some of my old high school (elementary school) friends come to know Him and then subsequently lead others to Him… I got the privilege of investing and seeing reproduction just as Dawson Trotman described… it was like a New Testament (Acts model) church!  The Lord was adding daily to our numbers those who were being saved.  Amazing.

  
  

   

  
  

  When college was coming to a close, I thought for sure I could take off and go on missions… but, no, it wasn’t time yet.  My parents are still not belivers and weren’t ready for such a thing… and I needed to help them come to a better understanding of who my God is… and I needed too to take some significant steps of faith so that they can see and understand.  Also, I realized that I feared them more than I feared God.  So I definitely needed to cure myself of that. 

  
  

   

  
  

  So… I stuck around San Diego, got a job as a researcher with a 2 year commitment.  Simultaneously, I got on staff with the Navigators as a part-time staffer at UCSD.  I hated my job but loved the minstry.  It was tough though… because there wasn’t enough time in the day to do all I wanted… and the job wore me down because working in front of the computer all day just doesn’t energize me.  Plus, statistics was way over my head, so I was very bored at work, unproductive and also felt sorta useless.  My boss didn’t help me much either.  He wasn’t very relational and was so brilliant, he made me feel stupid.

  
  

   

  
  

  So at the end of the 2 years, I was burnt out and ready to move on to something different.  And God was releasing me.  But quitting my job was a BIG deal.  I had the most stable job in the world and was as financially comfortable as could be.  It was totally irrational to my parents and terrifying to me to have to tell them that I was gonna quit.  But through dozens of verses from the Word and other confirmations, I knew I had to do it.  I was certain that my parents would disown me, actually.  So when I walked into their house that day with Ps 27:10 from the Lord, I thought for sure His Word was to say that my parents will reject me… but actually, they didn’t.  We had a LONG and intense conversation about my faith (it was the best one yet) and afterwards, my dad actually said (in english!), “You do what you gotta do.  Just know that this house is always here if you need to come back.”  I was sooo shocked, I was speechless.  Ps 27:10 took on a whole new meaning for me as I drove away that night.  Your father & mother will never forsake you, how much more so will I never forsake you!  That’s what God was saying to me!  It was amazing.

  
  

   

  
  

  From that day on, I became an adult in my parent’s eyes.  I stopped fearing them like I had been doing all my life.  God was my Lord and Master!!  and I was free to follow Him!

  
  

   

  
  

  Well, I did quit the job and was gonna go to China that year but SARS happened so I didn’t go.  God gave me a part-time job (seriously, out of nowhere) and a place to stay (whoohoo! thanks to Cindy), and I did that for a whole year. It was the best job I’ve had so far.  What a blessing.  And it was perfectly orchestrated too.  He knew more than I did how desperately I needed to recuperate from my ministry burnout.

  
  

   

  
  

  So after about 6 mos working that part-time job & “resting”, I went to WCC Feb of 2004, and that’s where I came across an ad for a staff opening with Ten40Connect doing missions mobilization.  The job description sounded like something I wanted to do.  It would be very different from what God had been confirming for me were my gifts (teaching/sheperding), but I wanted to try it anyway just to be stretched.  Much praying led to much confirmation from the Word once again… so I applied and got the job!  I was totally overwhelmed by what was happening.  It was my first assignment in the full-time ministry capacity after all these years of walking and waiting.  ~ totally exciting!!

  
  

   

  
  

  My first assignment with them was to go on a 5-week short term to China last summer.  I led a team of 7 others.  My first real STM and I was leading?  It was challenging, for sure!

  
  

   

  
  

  After I came back from China, I packed my stuff and moved everything 8 hours north to the bay area, because the missions agency is located up here. Two weeks after trying to settle in, I packed again and headed back to China for a short 2-week mission trip to the farwest of China.  Also, another amazing trip.

  
  

   

  
  

  And that brings us to today. I’ve been living up here for 6 mos now.  What do I do on the daily basis?  Well, in the beginning, I helped work on our promotional materials (brochures – and no, i didn’t design them), our webpage, and tried to contact different churches and campuses to see if we could come promote there; then for 2 mos, I went from site to site every week to promote.  I’d share my story/journey… testify about God.  It really kept me on my toes since public speaking is hard for me, but at the same time, I looooove getting to share.  So it was a sort of love-hate relationship.  Now I am in the midst of ”processing” the applications for the summer program and doing interviews for summer participants. 

  
  

   

  
  

  So after 6mos of doing this, I found out what I already knew.  All this admin stuff is all right; I can do it; but it definitely isn’t all that God would have me do, I’m sure of it.  Many days are soo hard for me. I get so restless sitting in front of the computer.  I need to be with people.  I long to be in a nonChristian environment sharing my faith, I long to be discipling others, I long to be with the unreached.  I am called to the missions field, not to the missions office, that is for sure.

  
  

   

  
  

  The conclusion?  Can’t wait to see what the next amazing thing is that God will unfold.  Even now, I’m in the midst of some sort of unfolding, I’m sure of it.  God is always up to something good.  Super exciting, isn’t it??  I love this life. 

  • 6:48 pm
  • 8 Comments