How I was called to the mission field.
Not exactly an easy question for me to answer. Something I’ve
realized quite recently was that even before I really believed in God, He was
shaping and molding me into the person He wants me to be. In the first grade I
received an award of “loves to help others” and that is something that
continues on into this day. I know it’s a drive that the Lord placed in me from
an early age, way before I put my faith in Christ. Sometimes that love to help
is taken too far in that I often “mother” people. And over the years this has
earned me the nickname of “Mama Graves”…
(Jeanine) and a mission trip called UMARMY or United Methodist Action
Reach-out Mission by Youth. I was 16 had never been on any
sort of mission trip and she convinced our small but awesome youth group to go
to Lake Charles, LA. I know there were at least 10 or so of us that went that
first year and it remains one of the best experiences of my life because it was
there that I got my first taste of missions. I went the next two years on the
UMARMY trips that my church did and loved them both. Somewhere either on a
retreat or on UMARMY I heard God’s call to be a nurse and use that expertise to
go on missions.
So I went on to UT and tried to major in nursing…it didn’t
happen. So as an undeclared major in the College of Natural Science I followed
the pre-nursing plan of classes which lead me to take a nutrition class the
beginning of my sophomore year. I loved it
and it was so interesting to me! When we were shown pictures of kids from across
the world that had preventable diseases due to a lack of adequate vitamins and
minerals, I knew I wanted to help and that the Lord was calling me to it. At
the same time a few close friends were praying about what to do after they
graduated and the Lord led them to southern Africa. This turn of events spawned
me to changing my major to nutrition and also re-awakened my passion for
overseas missions (even though I have yet to go on one).
So a side note about missions in College: Right before I
started at UT in 2004, I took a trip with my parents to Key Largo, FL to go
SCUBA diving. That was the year that six hurricanes crossed Florida. My dad and
I went on one morning dive (with 5 ft waves on a catamaran boat) before Hurricane
Charlie came by and knocked us back to the mainland for a few days. We sat
around the hotel and watched as the news coverage came in. We were in
Homestead, FL which had been leveled by Hurricane Andrew 13 years before that
and was still very fresh in all of locals’ minds. In a few days we went back to
the Keys to continue diving and I had great time. On the way back to Texas we
had to drive through the middle part of Florida and for the first time I saw in
person what a hurricane can do. I kept asking the Lord why I was seeing so many
people having to pick up the pieces of their lives and yet not be able to do
anything to help them. (I moved into the dorms two days after we got home.) My
answer came a few weeks later as my campus ministry announced that they would be
going on a Hurricane relief trip to Florida right before Christmas. I
immediately volunteered.
Rita and the Texas Wesley has been making a trip every year to the Beaumont
area since 2005 to help with the clean up. Yes, even today they are still
cleaning up in that area from a Hurricane that hit 3.5 years ago. There just
isn’t enough help to go around. I never saw the damage first hand from Katrina
but I know that people in Orange, Beaumont, Port Arthur, Bridge City, Silsbee, my
mom’s hometown, and many more feel forgotten by our government and our people.
Katrina was terrible, I’m not saying it wasn’t, but just because Rita didn’t hit a
big city doesn’t mean that people weren’t affected.
I think the same thing happens when we hear about other
nations’ troubles. We say “oh that’s awful” but after the initial thought,
never really think of it again.
So long story short: My call to missions in Africa began in
an introductory nutrition class, has continued through three more classes and a
host of friend’s blogs. It has become a passion and a flame inside my heart
that I hope and pray is never put out.
