For Such A Time As This

Ten Years ago, I stepped on a plane to serve as a summer missionary in Nepal.  I had heard I would be spending the summer doing medical work, and I was very excited about that prospect.  Sure I had no medical training, but I had watched lots of episodes of ER on tv, so that counted, right?

My dream had always been to serve God overseas.  This was one step in that dream.  However, I quickly found, as we generally do,  God’s dreams for me were different than I had planned.

That summer, our team’s job assignment was to make maxi pads for the maternity ward.  Yes, you read that right, making maxi’s for the glory of the Lord.  

It seemed so mundane.  It was very unlike I had planned.  It was not a great missionary glory story.

Sometimes the steps to our God-sized dreams seem so mundane.  They are very unlike what we have planned.  They are not the glory story we had planned– but God is doing kingdom work behind the scenes. (<====Click to Tweet)

Maxipad making led to a desire and a calling to go back and serve God in Nepal full time.  This led to leaving everything I knew and loved in America to go live in Kathmandu Nepal for two years.

In those years, I learned the language, learned the people, and the culture.  In those years, I fell in love with the people, the culture, and the God who had called me so far out of my comfort zone.  

God-sized dreams evolve and change, even if we feel more comfortable when they stay the same!  (<====Click to Tweet)

I thought I would stay in Nepal forever, but God began to work on my heart, calling me to return back to America, get my Masters in Christian counseling, with an emphasis on trauma,  and start a ministry called Coming Alive Ministries 

That’s where the title “For Such a Time as This” comes in.

In the Book of Esther, Esther is called to do something scary.  She has the chance to go before the king and ask for his help in saving her people.  It would  take bravery.  Our kingdom work takes bravery.  

It would take using her months of training to be a princess.  Often God uses practical training for our dreams.  

It would take being in the right place at the right time.

Esther 4:14 And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? 

In the month of May I got to experience what I call my Esther moment when I returned to Nepal.

This time, I was there to help after two large earthquakes had devastated an already desperately poor third world country.

God put together all kinds of pieces for this dream He had dreamed for me.  

I already spoke the language fluently.

I had a degree in trauma counseling.

And I had a love for these people.

For such a time as this. I will never forget the first village we went to. There was nothing that remained standing. There was a pancaked church with 8 bodies still inside. And there was a group of those that had survived, bandaged and bruised as they were, huddled under a small piece of tin.  And they were looking for hope.

I opened my mouth and was able to speak in their language. Simply be with them. To walk them through this unspeakable trauma.

Village after village this happened. They came for hope.

It was a God sized dream that I would never have dreamed.

God is putting together the puzzle pieces of your life for His kingdom work, for such a time as this.  (<====Click to Tweet)

How have you seen Him call you for such a time as this?

 

Shared by :  Jennifer Hand

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