Throughout this season of post-grad life and support raising I get asked a lot of the same questions. They are all great questions... but when you are on the receiving end and life looks very differently than those of your peers, some of these can be challenging to process and answer. I hope you know I am grateful for your questions as it shows that you care and I don’t want this to sound like I am frustrated by any means but I do want to use this space to be honest with you all. What I have been learning in this new season is the answer to a lot of these questions: “in the Lord’s timing and will.” I want to answer these questions to the best of my ability but a lot of the time I don’t have a good enough answer or I feel a need to impress you through my words when I talk about my timeline, process, and emotions. Here is an honest approach to some burning questions.
I will start with the funniest and most entertaining to me, “Aren’t you supposed to be in Asia?” I love the look on people’s faces when they see me and are confused on why I am not gone, obviously a misunderstanding since I never planned to be gone this early but I am thankful that is where you have placed me, because I so badly would like to be there.
“What are you doing with your degree?” The beloved question I get the most in this post-grad season from family and new peers I meet. I should be so thankful to answer in the way that I have the opportunity to do so, it is such a blessing to share about the ministry the Lord has placed before me as an occupation. I am so blessed that I can say I am getting to use my career for the leverage of the gospel, yet it is hard to answer and not immediately feel placed on a pedestal. This is such a normal question, and your response is completely valid. What I am going to do for the next two years is different, not crazy. I get a lot of different reactions as you can imagine, mostly good, some bad.
“Are you teaching English?” The first question I get asked about moving overseas before I can get a word out. Humorous to say the least since I will be in full time language school for 6 months doing the exact opposite and praying that I forget English. I know many people that are moving overseas to teach English and it is an amazing outlet to share the gospel.
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.” -Matthew 19:29
That leads me into the question I dread the most, but also fully understand. “How does your mom feel?” Selfishly, I wish this question was about me. To be honest, my inner response is that I don’t care. I love my mom and am so thankful for the way she raised me and has provided everything I could ever need and more. This is so much bigger than her or anyone else in my family. This is about adding to the Lord’s family. This verse above is often taken out of context, I expect suffering not blessings. I am not expecting fruit from ministry unless it is in the Lord’s will and timing for Him to save His people. I am choosing to go and be uncomfortable because the Lord has truly called me into this good work placed before me. I know I will spend eternity with Jesus because He met me in my sin and brought me to Himself.
“Why Central Asia?” Divine Intervention. Just kidding, but not really. I have no idea how this happened! The Lord planned this for me and I said yes. I had never heard of the country I was going to until I applied to serve there. GoCorps does a placement process and this one in particular was most closely associated with my college degree. I believe that the Lord does not have to call you to a certain place for you to be open to go. I knew I wanted to go somewhere hard to reach and now I am entering the 10/40 window, the red zone of the unreached. Now I have a heart for those people and am excited to go and meet them soon.
“How is support raising?” I know this is genuine, my team and supporters truly want to know where I am at. When this has been your whole life for the past 4 months, of course this is what people ask you about. This is the question the devil most easily attacks. I remind myself that my identity is not a percentage of how much money I have raised. My hope does not lie in when I finish this race but in the God who has started this good work in me and will bring it to completion. I find encouragement in this question because this journey has been the hardest and most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life. It helps me to look back at the promises and prayers the Lord has answered and how they have changed me.
The most frequently asked question, “When do you leave?” I wish I had a definite answer, since the beginning of this process almost two years ago, I thought it would be this December. Due to a lot of unforeseen circumstances it will most likely and prayerfully be March 2022. I want it to be on the Lord’s timeline and not mine, so I trust that His ways are far better than mine. He is an unchanging God, which means He knows when I will leave and is not surprised.
I hope you read this light heartedly as I use this outlet to talk about my true feelings and express my emotions to the fullest extent. Please keep asking questions, it helps me to know that the people behind me understand where I am at so they can be prepared to hold the rope as I take the much needed gospel to the nations. Always with love, thank you.
In Christ,
Ruth :,)