I have just begun my career as a career missionary. That's not even the beginning of the beginning. It all began my Junior year in high school. I knew that my Junior year and senior year were going to go by swiftly. My Freshman and Sophomore years did. I knew the years were just going to be more and more quick. This put me in a predicament, at least, I thought. I had to figure what I had to do with the rest of my life. At such a young age children are expected to decide their future for the rest of their lives. That was a big decision to me. I did not want to be miserable and bored for the rest of my life. I wanted to be happy doing what I want, but that was the begged question: what do I want to do for the rest of my life? After painstaking hours of continuous thought into this subject, I never reached a conclusion. I did manage, however, to discover I wanted to help people and travel the world. Well, now I had to answer the next question: what do I want to do that allows me to travel the world and help people? I delved back into maze of my brain contemplating the possibilities. It was difficult. I dreaded having to do any prolonged schooling... college, university. Oh, I could barely bear the thought of it! Every day in school, I hated. You see, a wise man once told me, "a real boy doesn't like school." Man, was he right! Once again, I delved back into my mind's eye, exploring, philosophizing, until I came across this beautiful revelation. The revelation that the greatest way to help someone is to lead them to Christ. At the time, I had no idea how much the simple phrase would impact my life.
One bright Sunday morning, I went to church. This Sunday is the one the dictated my life. The day I made the decision... the decision of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. My church had a visiting missionary. He wanted to give the congregation an update on what is happening in his life. He hailed from Overland Missions. He did most of his work in Zambia, Africa. He showed videos and images of what he had been doing. Pictures of people being saved, people rejoicing over clean water. That seemed prime to me. Not only would I lead people to Christ, but do some hard work. That seemed wonderful. Unfortunately, I still wasn't sure if that is what I wanted to do. In due time, one of the most influential statements occurred in my life. Shortly after church, I am in the passenger seat of my mother's car, as we are flying down the highway. It wasn't a long drive home. Out of the blue, my mom says, "if you want to do full-time missions instead of go to college, I would fully support you in that." Right there! It was that moment I decided what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I was going to become a missionary.
I ended up meeting with that missionary and talking to him about Overland Missions and a program within Overland. After my senior year I did that program and joined Overland Missions. I am now in the first steps of Overland. It is called the MPD process, or Ministry of Partnership Development. That is process of when I have to meet with individuals and ask them to support me monthly financially. This newsletter is just one gift to those who choose to support me and for those who choose to just see what is happening in my life. I will try to put a newsletter up at the beginning of every month and whenever else I feel like doing extra. My goal is to have my monthly support coming by April 17th. I deem that as the latest.