I don’t remember what I pictured a missionary looked like or did when I first felt that God was asking me to give up my dream for His. The church I grew up in was very small and I think we supported a missionary family, but I don’t remember who they were or where they lived and I don’t recall them ever visiting our church. All I knew was that missionaries went to far-off places to teach people about God and convert the heathen masses to Christianity. I didn’t read classic missionary biographies. When I accepted God’s dream and said yes to what He wanted me to do I first thought I needed a degree from a Christian school. I had worked at carpentry jobs in the summers, as I’d grown up doing with my father who had been an elementary school teacher and took carpentry jobs during his summers, but didn’t think that would look good on a resume to a mission organisation. I figured I needed some formal teaching and training in being a missionary.
Through university I still didn’t really know what it would look like for me to be a missionary, what sort of work I would do. I didn’t picture myself as a pastor, or church planter. I didn’t believe I had the mind for that sort of position. I trusted that God knew what He was doing when He asked me and it would become clear when it needed to. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Ministry degree we spent a year in South Korea where I taught English in a private school, and this confirmed that I wasn’t made to be a teacher in a formal school setting. I love children, but I wasn’t a teacher like my father was. I have worked as a carpenter all my life, but didn’t really see the value in it. I failed to see that it could be a tool to be with people, work alongside young men who needed to be mentored, and was actually quite a valuable skill to have. Carpentry for me was a means to earn a pay check. I see it differently now.
