Ends of the Earth

Have you ever had a verse come alive to you? Acts 1:8, the one you can find in my title, feels like my life story. I have never been to the Jerusalem, Judea, or Samaria, but God has given me an ever-increasing mission field. I first went to Juarez, Mexico in 1999 with my youth group... I was ruined in a good way. Three more Mexico trips followed over the years to border cities to do construction projects and Vacation Bible School. I found myself in the mission field at home- working at my church, sharing with friends at university, and reaching out to my coworkers. Then I traveled to Guatemala for my first time to use my nursing skills and I continued with three more trips to the little clinic in Guatemala’s hills.

Finally, I had to ask how could I satisfy my heart’s desire of doing missions just one week a year? So I signed up full-time with Mercy Ships and my life has never been the same. I have witnessed God do miracles in the lives of people here in West Africa. I see physical healing as well as spiritual healing for our patients that have suffered so long. I thought this Acts 1:8 calling would be complete here being a nurse missionary. However, my heart longed even more to be at the “ends of earth” when I went to visit Georgette with the Jesus Film Team. We were invited into villages by chiefs to share the good news of Jesus Christ. We went so deep into the bush that our land rover was driving over footpaths into areas that no vehicle had been.

We would arrive at a village and the children would gather around us as elders collected benches for us to sit on. The first village was Toweta, where I was suppose to share a testimony after the message. I kept going over in my head what I was going to share, but as I looked into the crowd, all I had was compassion for these children. This reminded me of the passage in Mark 10 when Jesus said "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” I read this passage to them and said that no matter if you are a child, a mama, or papa you may enter the kingdom if you receive the truth that God so loved the world he gave his son as a sacrifice for our sins. As I spoke John 3:16 from memory, I could see in their eyes this was new- that they had never heard this truth before of God’s love. It was that day I found myself at the “ends of earth” as we continued on visiting Glachihoue’ and Kakapohoue’ sharing the gospel, our lives, and praying for the village people. That night, the Jesus Film was shown in the local language, Fon, and even a brass band showed up for the worship and dancing afterwards. Sunday, the team split up in pairs to visit and encourage local churches. I was the only Yovo (white person) at this little village church and I danced like one too. What a joy it was to give Bibles out to new believers that had received the truth the day before at the Jesus Film. We said our final farewell after a time of thanksgiving and prayer for the time we had in Benin and headed home to the ship in Togo. I find myself longing to be out there in the villages, but I trust that God will place me in different mission fields, sometimes at the beginning, in the middle, or at the “ends of the earth."