God once spoke to me that these times at Christ for the Nations would be times that I would forever look back on and think, “That is where it all started…” Even as my third semester is coming to a close, I can look back and already think that in my head. God has forever changed the course of my life here at CFNI.
The Sunday before I arrived at CFNI I was attending a church in Roanoke, Texas and God spoke to me. The prophet of the church gave me and a friend the same identical vision. He told us that he saw a fork in the road over both of us with one direction being the way we think we are going and the other direction being the road God would lead us to. Basically, we were coming to CFNI for one thing, but God would reveal to us both that we were going to be graduating for a different thing. Prior to coming to CFNI I received my Associates Degree in Audio Engineering from a local community college. I knew God was calling me here even though I was expecting to come to attain a Bachelor’s in Worship and Tech Arts (more audio work, just the ministry aspect of it). Although I had tried to fit this vision several times before this event, everything changed when Heidi Baker, a well-known missionary to Mozambique, came to CFNI for the Voice of Healing Conference.
Heidi Baker is well known to a lot as the “Mother of Mozambique.” She has amazing stories of healing and has been to CFNI several times to speak at their Voice of Healing Conference. In September of 2013, my first semester at CFNI, she came and spoke again. I was really excited as I had seen her in movies except now she wouldn’t be on the TV screen! I was coming expectantly and knew God was going to show up… just not in the way He did. Heidi Baker came up after worship with her loving attitude and kneeled onstage to begin praying and laughing. We followed her in getting with God and loving on Him. After a while of this awesome time with Him, she got up and started telling stories. My eyes, ears, and heart could not have been more fixed on her words than that night. Story after story was told and I couldn’t help but feel so… so… so provoked to want to have stories just like these! The adventure, the obstacles, the triumphs… they were all drawing my attention completely. In the middle of her telling these stories of her life in Mozambique, my heart began burning. Now, I know people in the church often say this phrase, “My heart was burning with passion!” or “My heart burns for more of You!” but my heart literally felt like it was getting warmer with almost like a tingly sensation. I was being pulled by her stories for sure! I didn’t know what was really going on until she suddenly stopped telling her stories. She then perked up and called me out. I had no idea that my life was suddenly about to change complete course.
She stopped telling her stories, thought for a moment, and proceeded to tell us that there were people in the crowd who “felt like their hearts were burning” as she was telling the stories. She said, “God was calling us to the mission field.” I was stunned. Missions had not been on my radar… WHATSOEVER. If there is the least amount of anything you can have in your life, missions was definitely below that in my life. I hadn’t thought of it, I hadn’t been dwelling about it, and I definitely had not even thought that I was called to be a missionary. Just that some people were called and some weren’t. Boy, was I wrong on almost everything.
She called us all up on stage and began praying for us, instilling something inside of all of us who felt called to be missionaries just minutes before. What a shock. In one instance I went from thinking I would be working for some great studios and engineers someday, recording big albums and whatnot, to thinking I would never attain any of that and that I would barely even be in the United States! I was now definitely headed down a path that I did not think I would be on, just as the vision had been at the church in Roanoke.
I dwelled on this for several days after. Seeing as how I had a newfound passion for missions, I didn’t know what to do with it really. It’s not like Heidi Baker said something and it so happens to be I was feeling that way and so I must believe every word she says. I
t’s that suddenly I knew I was to be on the mission field and I had a passion deep in my heart for it. I didn’t know quite what to do with it.
This blog is my first step to eventually making my own ministry. I will travel across the world on mission trips to bring His will to unreached people groups, to bring His name to foreign soil, and to bring His glory to churches already formed on every continent. From not knowing what to do at all to now where I am dreaming BIG with a vision set in mind, I am going to respond to every word He tells me. Whatever He tells me to do, I will do… And He is telling me to go to the nations.
So off to the nations I will go.