Short-Term Impact, Long-Term Results - Ruth Fox
Ruth FoxMedical student preparing for the mission field
I had it all worked out when I was ten. I was going to be a missionary and serve God! In the mind of a ten year old, that was it. I never thought about where I would go or what I would do once I got there; I was just sure about the missionary part.As I got older and went on a few international mission trips, I realized that there is a little more that goes into getting to the mission field. I slowly started working though the plethora of decisions that needed to be made. I’ll go to China! Or not. After going to South America with Global Encounters I knew that was the region to which God was calling me. So I settled on WHERE, but WHAT was I supposed to do once I got down there? In seeking the Lord I realized that He was calling me to medical missions. Each mission trip I went on, it was the medical needs that both broke my heart and drew me to help. Okay, God. No problem. I’ll become a nurse and be down in my mission field in a few years. I had it all figured out.
But the plans that I had made for God weren’t the plans that He had made for me. The region of South America to which I was headed, the kind of training that I was pursuing, and the timing of hitting the mission field have all changed and changed again. God doesn’t always show us the whole pathway. He was just showing me one step at a time. I wanted to take that step and then keep right on running even though He hadn’t shown me His whole path. Sometimes God asks us to slow down, be patient, and wait on him.I began to realize that my medical training is going to take a while… a long while. Why God? I’m ready to serve you now. Why should I wait? God has had to remind me repeatedly that I can serve Him anywhere. I know that God wants me on a foreign field in the future, but right now my mission field is here, at school, on the job, with friends, and at my church. I don’t need to wait to serve God till I’m in South America with my medical degree. God can use people all the time, here and now. Where is your mission field?Click here for all the stories from the May, 2010 newsletter.