I remember the tears rolling down my cheeks. As I sat there listening, the words of the missionary filled my mind with images of people of all races and ages dying and going to a terrible burning hell – people who had never heard of the God I had been taught about since I was born. I was only eight, but I knew one thing: I had missions in my heart. I wanted to spend my life telling others they needed God and salvation.

 

When I was about eleven, I realized I had never considered or applied to myself all the things I wanted to tell others. After I accepted Christ, I wish I could say my desire to evangelize strengthened and I dedicated my life to missions. But I did not. Although I was in a church that taught salvation, it was weak in expository preaching and personal discipleship. As a result, I grew spiritually stagnant. During high school, I took a week-long “missions” trip to Mexico, but the trip had little purpose to me other than the fun of seeing a different country.

 

God graciously led my family to a different church, where I finally began to grow in my own walk with the Lord. When I started college, I decided to steward my artistic talent rather than choose a ministry-focused major. My friends thought I was crazy. What could I do for God with art? I honestly did not know.

 

I graduated with a degree in graphic design and went to work full-time at a Christian camp as the assistant graphic artist. I met and became engaged to a young man. But the Lord saw fit to redirect me. God ended the engagement and brought me home, all within the space of a week. I came back to my family and church an emotional wreck, with no direction for my life and no job.

Then God dropped a short-term missions trip in my lap.

 

One day Dr. Patterson called me and asked if I would be interested in going to Cambodia. The McPhail family needed a helper to come care for their three small children for a few months. Forrest McPhail needed to return to the States for a family wedding, and Jennifer McPhail had injured her back and could not lift anything.

 

The only difficulty: they needed me there in two weeks. I told Dr. Patterson I would pray about it and hung up in a daze. How could I be a help to anyone in my current emotional condition? Right away my parents told me that in some circumstances, God's will is so clear that you don't need to spend a lot of time praying about it.

 

I called back immediately and told Dr. Patterson I would go. I watched in amazement as God removed every obstacle. I had no passport, but I received mine in one week. My financial needs were provided for by generous donors. At the airport, the check-in officer even allowed my entire family to accompany me to the terminal gate to see me off, even with strict post-911 security. Exactly two weeks from when I received Dr. Patterson’s call, I found myself in Phnom Penh!

 

The McPhails took me into their family, emotional troubles and all, and my healing started. I found that Forrest and Jennifer were the wise counselors I needed to deal with the raging turmoil in my own heart. I spent four months with them. I learned some of the language, met national people they were witnessing to, and attended the church plants they were shepherding. I fell in love with the people and country of Cambodia, so when the time came for me to fly home, I did not want to leave. But I returned home to be with my family for Christmas and to go back to “normal” life. I had no idea how much the trip had changed my life.

 

Not only did I come home emotionally calmer, but to this day, I still have a deep friendship with the McPhails. Through a failed attempt to share my trip pictures with a group of friends, I got to know my future husband. David was a missionary kid from Germany who had plans to return to Germany for missions. My childhood visions of telling the world's lost about God might be possible after all! But after we were engaged, God redirected our steps. David felt called to go into a technical field and serve the Lord as a layman in my hometown.

 

After we were married, I struggled with infertility and deep depression. During this time, I corresponded with Jennifer McPhail and shared my struggles. She responded with sound advice and encouragement. When my son was born, she rejoiced with me on the other side of the world. As more children came, I delighted in introducing them to Forrest and Jennifer and their children on furloughs.

 

GFA recently asked me to participate in a panel discussion about short-term missions. I felt out of place, since I was the only panelist who had not gone into full-time missions work. But I realized my short-term trip was just as important to me as the other participants’ trips had been to them. How? Because I have missions in my heart. I may not be waking up to the call of the Imam, combined with the ear-shattering music of a Cambodian wedding or funeral and the neighboring roosters. But I have the call of little voices that need me and the clamor of children's play. I am serving in full-time mentoring work here on my own field. I have four souls living with me every day that need salvation. Like the Khmai people I grew to love, these little hearts struggle with the importance of leaving their “idols” and turning to Christ to change them. I tell them about my love for other countries and peoples. My stories might direct their hearts to go one day themselves. I hope my children may become arrows to send out to mission fields that I will never be able to go to myself. And, finally, when I hear prayer requests for Cambodia, I can pray with understanding, for I have faces of nationals that I have known, streets that I have walked, and a culture I experienced.

 

Would you consider going on a short-term missions trip? Even if you are not “called” into full-time missions work? Even if you think you are not in a time of your life that you can be of any use? God gave me a chance to go and stay for a short time, and God used me. I even had the joy of using my art talents for an evangelistic calendar that the McPhails distributed to hundreds of Khmai people. God also used the McPhails in my life. Their home was a place of peace when I felt all was chaos. I expected a babysitting job; instead I got a second family. They shared their heart for the needs of the people of Cambodia, and I came home with a heart more deeply burdened for missions.

 

Are you willing to let God put missions in your heart? Short-term missions is not just for full-time missionaries. This is my story. What will yours be?