Lead on! I will follow...

Here comes the post where I get to excitedly tell you which direction the Lord has used this trip to lead me towards. A month ago I knew that I liked working with people, I liked the outdoors, and I liked using computers – especially in design and graphics – but didn’t know a ton more than that. Looking at the areas of study Corban had to offer, I was interested in two different fields: Teaching and Missions. I didn’t really know which major exactly to tell people I was going for because I honestly didn’t know – which was a big reason why a month ago I was eagerly looking forward to this trip and now, looking back, am very thankful to the Lord for providing for!
Isn’t it so neat how the Lord works! This time He used village experiences and conversations with Ken and Erik to steer me towards choosing to pursue a degree in... well, you’ll just have to keep readin’ to find out. The first big pointing arrow came when Ken and I walked to a school in a nearby village where he taught the sixth grade children to read their own language using portions from Genesis. It was great to see him able to teach the valuable skill of literacy and God’s word at the same time! Even in the poorest of situations the Word was being spread. Another big pointer has been interactions with village kids all along the way. Whether it was running together with a group of 30 or so laughing children on their way to school, working on construction with our very helpful neighbor kids, or sliding through the mud with Maxwell and the others on Children’s Day I’ve grown even more to love playing with children and spending time with them. I feel blessed that I can communicate by sharing smiles and playing games despite the language barrier that can be so hard sometimes. Somewhere during the first week with the Nehrbass family I’d decided that I wanted to become a teacher. A little further down the road of this trip, with a few pit stops coming in the form of talks with Ken and Erik, I thought that elementary education might be what I wanted to take. I knew that I wanted to teach, but not just any sort of teaching. I felt like the Lord was leading me towards becoming a missionary teacher. I wasn’t sure of all the details exactly but I was interested in possibly Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and also had a strong interest in teaching the Bible and sharing it with others. I know that the Lord could use a TESOL certification to open doors for ministry which is pretty exciting to me. Through this trip I’ve seen a little more of what the life of a missionary can look like – the rich rewards and very tough challenges of it – and I’m excited to become a missionary if the Lord continues to lead me in this direction. I love the lifestyle here – kind of reminds me of camping – while I also realize that it’s hard to completely understand the difficulties of living overseas in just 3 short weeks of it. But I know that I’m in the boat if there’s Lord in it too! A main reason I was considering the elementary education degree was as a stepping stone for obtaining a Master’s degree in Education with the TESOL certication. So here I was sitting thinking about all this a few days ago (actually I was running with Erik), and realized that I should look at another teaching degree that Corban offers – Bible Education. I compared the courses between the elementary teacher and the Bible teacher and noticed that all the not so exciting classes like teaching math, health, and literature which were found in the Elementary degree were replaced with some really neat Bible classes in the Bible teacher degree. While at the same time both degrees still have the standard chunk that all teachers get training them about teaching and all the hours spent in the classroom were still there. It seemed to good to be true! I could get an in-depth Bible training while still at the same time train to become a teacher. And this degree could be used as a great stepping stone for the future: whether to get a Master’s and TESOL certification to teach Bible/English overseas; to teach Bible in a school in the US; or to prepare me for another field of missions as the Lord leads in the future. So that’s what I’m excited about right now – becoming a teacher!
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?” Romans 10:14-15
I still need to ask a lot of questions to the right people about teaching and missions and I ask you for prayer for continual reliance on the Lord to lead and that I won’t worry about the future but be reminded that He holds it in the palm of His hand. Praise the Lord for always letting us know just enough about the future to give us comfort and yet not too much so we stop trusting in Him.
Oh, and you’re probably wondering, “What about Bible translation?” Well I have a lot to tell about here too but I’ll try to keep it short. It’s been awesome to observe the work of translating the Bible into the language of the local villages here who only have it in Bislama – a language many of them don’t know very well. To me Bible translation seems like one of the most rewarding jobs out there and while difficult, looks very exciting to me. Yet, to be honest, the reason I’m not currently going that direction is simply that the Lord isn’t putting it on my heart and instead He’s deeply stirred in me a desire to teach and spread God’s Word to those currently untouched by it. Yet, if He redirects me somewhere down the road towards it, I’ll gladly pursue training in Bible translation. If any of you young folk reading this ever feel the Lord leading you to become a missionary, maybe to translate the Bible, jump on board cause you’ll never regret it.
Wherever the Lord leads you and leads me, let us remember to “Be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord [our] God is with [us] whithersoever [we] go. ” Joshua 1:9