Moving to England

Today’s the day I hop on a plane and move to England for a year. For some of you who don’t know I have decided to not go to OSU this year and instead God has called me to go to England for a year and to serve Him.

This summer I had the privilege to go to England with my church and to serve there for a week in July. Going into the trip I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting much. I was excited to go to England but my heart wasn’t in it. I was already exhausted from coming home from my Romania mission trip just 2 weeks prior and was not wanting to hop on a plane overseas so soon. It’s crazy how God works. Once I got there and started working with the kids and getting to love on them and share my testimony and the gospel to nonbelievers God started working in me. We had a person come to where we were staying and he was talking about how people in this room are called to come back here and serve with us. While he was speaking I started getting this feeling in my heart that this was something God wanted me to do. It terrified me to be honest. I had no idea what it meant, and it surely wasn’t in my plan. My plan had me coming home and leaving to go to college in two weeks with my best friend. My plan didn’t involve me moving to a different country leaving everything I knew and loved behind. As I was still in England I began to really pray to God about this calling and I was questioning if this was even what he really wanted for me. I didn’t even know if it was possible for me to come in September considering it was just 6 weeks away. As the week continued we went up onto a local mountain/hill called Roseberry Topping and Mike Taylor the founder of UK-USA ministries spoke about how people from our group are called to come back and that it doesn’t matter if you are supposed to be going to college if you are called you are called. After that I knew I was coming back. I just had to talk to my parents. My parents took the news amazingly and although leery to let me go off to a different country alone knew that I couldn’t ignore God’s calling for me. My parents had about two days to think it over before I had to come up with my decision and that Sunday at church my pastor, Pastor Kouba, preached on Genesis 22:1-19 and about Abraham and his test of faith to sacrifice his only son. Pastor Kouba spoke about how God will always provide and that in order to follow Christ we will have to give up things. He also spoke about how first day faith is easy but third day faith is hard. This means that the initial step of faith and deciding to follow Christ is easy, but when God calls you to do something completely out of your comfort zone and not a part of the perfect little plan you have for yourself then it’s difficult to continue to follow Him. But something that stood out to me that Pastor Kouba said was “Because God gives us everything we can give everything to Him.” This sermon was one of the deciding factors for my parents allowing me to go to England.

Over the next few weeks everything was falling in line in order for me to go to England. OSU was allowing me to defer my enrollment and to keep my scholarships. My best friend and the girl who was supposed to be my roommate, although upset about me deciding to go to England, was so supportive of me and happy for my calling. After my conversation with Maddy and how supportive she was for me I finalized my decision on going to England and started the application process for my visa. I knew that God has called me to go because he took care of everything for me, and like my Pastor said God has given me everything so I can give everything to him.

I will try to post on here as much as I can to keep everyone up to date on my adventures in England. Thank you all who have been praying for me and for supporting me through this crazy few weeks and those who continue to pray for me and for the work that will be done in England.