Burkina Where?

"If you had all the resources you needed and a guarantee for success, what would you do?" the group leader asked us in the introductory session of Beth Moore's Bible study on James called Mercy Triumphs.

I was the third person in line to answer, so I didn't have very much time to think. I quickly answered, "I guess I would start a medical clinic in a place with poor medical care as a foundation for ministry and church planting."

I didn't realize it in the moment, but that was the first verbalization of my heart's inner dream. I had never expressed it aloud until that very moment.

Not even two weeks later, I attended the Global Missions Experience sponsored by Harding University. During the first keynote speaker, I sat by my friend, Emily, who is a social work major that is just as passionate about mission work as I am. During the singing, we were slightly distracted by a family across the aisle with really precious children. After the session, we went to talk to them and meet them (because that's what girls do when they see cute kids). They told us that they were planning to go to Burkina Faso this summer to commit to mission work.

"Burkina where?" I said. I had never heard of such a place.

They went on to tell us about Burkina Faso, a french-speaking country in Western Africa that is plagued with drought, poverty, Islam and animism, and a significant orphan problem. "We are going to work with an organization that cares for widows and orphans. They need help starting an orphanage and a medical clinic."

Emily and I looked at each other as if to say, Did she just say what I think she said?

Emily's secret dream has always been to work in an orphanage. Mine has been to start a clinic. But we never dreamed we would ever work together.

Both Emily and I pursued the idea of joining their team. We have spent time with the missionary families, learned about the country, researched the missionary work already occurring, and prayed fervently.

As I continued to attend the James Bible study, I was challenged by the call of James to put our faith into action. "What about your faith right now is calling you to action?" James begs to ask. James 1:27 stood out to me: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

A few weeks ago, when I went on a float trip on the Buffalo river, I committed those four quiet, peaceful days to listening to God's voice regarding this opportunity in Burkina. I wrote in my journal, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Thinking back on the context of that prayer in Samuel's story (1 Samuel 3), I realized that when Samuel asked God to speak, He spoke. Immediately. When Samuel woke up the next morning, he knew what God had said. There was no "okay, God, speak to me and then I will wait six months to make sure I heard your voice correctly."

So when I asked God to speak this time, I trusted Him to do it. And I trusted that I would have my mind made up by the end of the float trip.

Back in May, I committed to praying for an entire year for team formation for me. Now, looking back over the past semester, I can see how God has paved the way. He placed this opportunity to go to Burkina in my lap without my even searching for it (which is usually a pretty good indicator that it is from the Lord!). He used the James study to lead me to verbalize my dream, discover it, and move it to action. He even confirmed it specifically through James 1:27.

"So what are you doing after graduation?" I can't wait for people to ask.

"I am going to Burkina Faso," I will say, "to care for widows and orphans using the nursing skills that I have been taught. I am going this summer for a few months to serve and survey, returning to the States to work for a year or so in order to gain experience while Emily finishes school, and then hopefully returning to help start a medical clinic and orphanage in combination with church planting."

These are our dreams, and the Lord holds it all in His hands.

In the great commission when Jesus said, "Go into all the world", it literally translates, "As you go..." As you go into the world, into your world, and throughout your day, make Jesus known.

For some of us, that's Burkina Faso. For others, it is hometown Arkansas...or Florida...or Minnesota. Some of us are called to go overseas or abroad, but all of us are already going somewhere. We go to work, to school, to practice, to rehearsal, to appointments, to meetings, to events, to vacation. And as we go, let us spread the fragrance of the aroma of Christ. Let us make Him famous. And  let us share this treasure that we have in Christ, so that praises to the Only God may rise from every corner of the globe.