A heart for A people

Obedience to Let Go

Hi Everyone! Thank you for supporting me through this discernment period, whiplash and all. This letter is much longer than what will be normal so I can explain the why behind my heartbeat and how that is impacting my plans for my future work. Next week I’ll send an update on where I am in my process, my current timeline, and current plans for the future.

Discernment for missions

Ever since I was mobilized for missions in college, my desire for missions has always been centered on making disciples of Unreached Peoples. I heard a story on a mission trip of a whole tribe coming to faith in Papua New Guinea, then immediately weeping for their elders who had died before knowing the truth of God. That story broke me for the unreached. After a year of trying to reject the call to reach the unreached, I planned that 3-5 years after college I would join a mission’s agency and go into full-time cross-cultural ministry to an unreached people group.

F (a mission’s agency) has a great team structure and a strong relationship with Park Community Church. And as an “undecided” missionary it seemed like a great place to move forward with and take actual steps towards going overseas, not just saying I would eventually. During a 2 week training event with them and months of sustained prayer I finally felt that God gave me some direction on the people I would serve (or my where). Confusingly, I heard both Pakistan and Japan! This was exciting, and as I wanted to do Business/Economic Development ministry, Pakistan felt like the best option. So I moved forward with F and Pakistan.

Pakistan

In September 2024 I visited Pakistan, meeting many different teams doing amazing work all over the country (Both Pics above are mine). On paper it was a perfect fit; creative businesses are desperately needed, ministry practices were familiar as I had been doing these things in Chicago, and I had virtually no culture shock! … Other than the heat. But to my surprise, I had no attachment or anything pulling me to the people. That scared me, not because God would be mad, or because I thought I was becoming heartless (I had many moments of compassion). But because God gave me 2 people’s, 2 places I could serve. Pakistan AND Japan. And I was scared because if it’s not Pakistan then it’s Japan, and I did NOT want to serve there. Going to Japan felt like giving up all the skills and passions I had grown to go somewhere I couldn’t even see myself being able to adapt well to living there long term. Japan is a first world country, and I wanted to do justice/economic development work while making disciples.

The keyword in these worries was I want. I had built up this vision of what kind of ministry I would do in many ways since high school, cemented in college, and it was looking like that wasn’t what God is leading me to.

I had to let go. Let go of my plans and be willing to be guided my God. Like a child holding their parent’s hand, to be at the mercy of the one who knows what is better.

Japan

Japan is a place, and a people I have always cared for. I was 7 or 8 when I first remember interacting with the culture; It was very cool and very sad. I remember seeing through the fun into a deep hopelessness, and the people’s acceptance of this pain. Another example is in 2021; a friend from college vaguely, briefly mentioned maybe going to Japan for ministry, and I cried a little, I had no idea where that emotion came from at the time.

After coming back to the US, memories like these kept coming up in quiet times with God. It was a gentle confirmation that God has placed a heart for the Japanese in me long before I was in the mission’s world. So in obedience to God's leading and after grieving my ideas for life, I have moved forward with joining a team in Japan. And it meant starting over in so many ways.

Thank you all again for reading this, I know it was a lot! I will have my next newsletter out next week, which will explain what I'm up to now and some more specifics. That letter will be the pattern for these Newsletters going forward: quick updates and prayer requests.