My Calling

Personal Testimony and Calling into Missions

When I was six years old, we watched the movie “A Thief in the Night” at a Sunday night church service.  It showed what the world could be like at the time of the rapture.  To be honest, it scared me quite a bit.  That night at home as my mom was making pizza I asked her what I had to do to go to heaven when Jesus comes back.  She helped me to understand my sinful nature and that I needed a savior.  We knelt together in the kitchen and I accepted Jesus into my life. 

Since that moment I have always believed, but there were times in my life that Jesus was not the Lord of my life.  When I went away to college I came to another crucial point in my life.  I realized that I couldn’t just inherit my parents religion, but had to make the decision for myself.  That is when I really began seeking a strong, personal relationship with Jesus Christ.   

All my life, I wanted to coach basketball.  After college, I quickly rose up the coaching ladder.  I became one of the youngest full-time assistant college basketball coaches in the country and coached in an NCAA tournament game before I turned 25.  So when my friend first mentioned that I should be a missionary in Mbita, Kenya; I didn’t want to even think about it.  But God kept getting my attention through His word, circumstances and sermons at church.  I reluctantly began to pray about it and the more I prayed the stronger I felt that calling in my life.  Finally, I decided to go on a short-term trip to Mbita to experience and seek out if God was really calling me there. 

Before the trip I prayed steadfastly that God would show me the needs at Christ’s Gift Academy and how He has equipped me to fit those needs if that was His calling.  After my first few days in Mbita, I hadn’t seen any clear evidences that God was calling me.  That changed quickly.  After praying with a few friends the night before, the local missionary expressed their need for help administratively, which is my spiritual gift.  In the following days we heard about their desire to do more with the children in sports (fitting for a basketball coach) and many of the teachers and staff talked about the lack of Godly male role models for the boys at CGA.  By the time I left Kenya after two weeks, I was feeling pretty strongly about God’s calling.  Two days after returning home, God woke me up at 4:00 am and brought me to 2 passages in the Bible.  Ezekiel 2 talked about Ezekiel’s calling to be a prophet to the Israelites, a stubborn and rebellious nation.  And Matthew 25 talks about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and looking after the sick; which is exactly what Christ’s Gift Academy is doing for the orphans in Mbita.  God also began speaking to my mind and giving me some of the details of this calling.  It was so clear it was like Jesus was sitting next to me.  But as I began going through the day, I started to doubt if I really did “hear” from God.  That afternoon, my friend who had been fasting with me called to tell me that she woke up at 4:00 am and couldn’t get me off her mind so she laid awake praying for me for an hour.  This was the exact time God was speaking to me.  Total confirmation that it really was God’s voice I was hearing.  This made it easy to leave sell my possessions, leave my career and head to Kenya!