In three years’ time, I had relocated to Georgia to attend a discipleship school, where on a Monday evening, October 6, 2003, the Vice President of a missions organization was teaching our class. At the conclusion, she invited the President of the ministry to speak about an upcoming short-term mission trip to San Juan de Lurigancho, Peru. He presented a video and some information about the kinds of ministries and service projects they had planned for this trip. He handed out some brochures and applications and asked for a show of hands of anyone who might be interested.
The thought of going on a mission trip to Peru in June 2004 wasn’t awful, actually. After all, I had taken six years of Spanish classes throughout high school and college but never used it. Logically, going on a mission trip to my first Spanish-speaking country made sense. Having already attended the discipleship school for more than nine months, my heart was in an open place to receive new instructions and to walk in obedience. This was not a dreaded hand-raise in response to the presenter’s question. This was a joyful moment of hope.
Especially because I knew I would not have to face the challenge alone. Alex and I had started “unofficially” dating just five days earlier and were engaged about four months later. The only disappointment I faced on the trip itself was not getting to share a room with him. Otherwise, the experience was enchanting, to say the least. The people captured both my heart and Alex’s; we were forever changed and bound to them. We knew we’d be back!
However, upon our return, we faced some…opposition…from certain Christian leaders in our lives who did not wish us to participate in the Peru ministry. “Do what, now?” we started asking the Lord. It seemed we were getting mixed messages. Do we trust our own spirit within or listen to those “authorities” in our lives leading us in another direction?
Given my history with missions, I was all too eager to throw in that towel. Besides, we had our wedding to plan for March 4, 2005. We were also a part of a young, small church body in which we frequently served. There wasn’t much time for anything else.
Indeed, a year or so after our wedding, we felt rather worn out from our frequent service, causing discontentment and distrust to develop in our faith. We started asking the Lord again for direction. After much prayer separately and together, as well as conversation with our church leadership, Alex and I decided to leave our church and seek fellowship in a larger body that would not demand so much of our focused time and energy so that our relationship with the Lord could be fully restored.
Because our church was so small at the time of our wedding, we rented a larger local church building for the ceremony and reception—which happened to be where the Peru missions organization was also permanently based. It seemed only natural that, in our search for a new church, we should start…there…
Sunday morning, we walked in the front doors of that church and were greeted immediately by the Senior Pastor—also the President of the missions organization. After smiles and hugs were exchanged, his next words…”Hey, do you want to go to Peru this summer?”
To be continued.
The Art of Choosing True Life 
Ok Holly. I am on the edge of my seat!