Testimony

I am being asked to share my testimony tomorrow, so I wrote it out and thought I would share it...

Both of my parents grew up in economically poor, but spiritually rich families. My mother’s father was discriminated against for holding on to the belief that we should live in peace and deciding not to fight during World War 2. My father’s family was persecuted for their protestant faith in Colombia where it was the norm to be catholic. These stories of faith are part of my heritage that I aspire to. 

When my parents were married, the Lord provided just what they needed. My dad studied at the university while teaching at a local high school. This job provided just enough money to pay the rent. My mother baked 600 brownies a day and sold them to two women who sold them on the street. This provided money for the families of the two women as well as just enough money for groceries for our family. Around the same time that my mother was thinking of expanding her business, someone stole her brownie recipe, but couldn’t make the brownies correctly, so people stopped buying the brownies altogether. God had a plan in this and provided my father with an opportunity to work with the government in foreign ministries. These stories of God’s faithfulness are what I cling to in times of need.

My brother was seven years old and my mother had had two miscarriages since his birth, so God again blessed my family through another child. I was born just three months before our family moved to Australia for my father’s first overseas posting as a diplomat. We lived there three years before moving back to Colombia and just before leaving Australia, my younger sister was born. 

Throughout the years, our lives kept shifting from one country to another. We lost friends, we gained others. We left homes, we found new ones. Through all this transition, my family became very close. My sister and I were the closest of friends, my brother- our hero. 

I came to know the Lord at a very young age and yearned to see others come to Christ. As a person moving from country to country and seeing so much pain in the world, I yearned to help the world become a better place- for the poor, for the oppressed, for the marginalized. I decided that I was going to do both these things by teaching children about the Lord. In High school this turned into a dream of starting an orphanage in either Sudan or Uganda. However, God had different plans for me. 

During my final year of university, I told the Lord that I was willing to go anywhere in the world, which really meant I wanted to go to a developing country and help those who really needed me. In that year, the Lord challenged me until I actually became ready to go anywhere that he would lead. That is when, through a series of different events, he led me to Singapore to work at the International Community School. He brought me to a place where there is not much economic need, but great spiritual need. While I am not at all in a place I expected to be, the Lord has given me the great opportunity to work with other children who move from one country to another, to teach other TCK’s about the Lord’s love, and about the home that he offers in heaven.