Send me to the city so that I may rebuild it.

HELLO APRIL!

What an interesting month it's been with weather almost up to 80 degrees two days ago and snow today with frigid air! I've been preparing for my upcoming summer season at the Nehemiah Mission with planning VBS, devotional content, outreach events, and neighborhood youth programming. I took a step back before diving into an abyss of planning and decided to jump back into the story of Nehemiah. It's a book of the old testament that gets overlooked quite frequently because it is quite small. However, it is most definitely
a story of leadership, perseverance, and obedience. So with that being said I encourage you to read it and dive into where your purpose aligns with Nehemiah's obedience. A few things I caught onto within my life, is that we all have our own type of Nehemiah story, or we should have.

In the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah really sets out on a huge adventure. His passion for a God-given purpose was set off when he asked his brother about the Jews who had survived the Babylonian exile. When Hanani had told Nehemiah that those who survived the exile were back in Jerusalem, but that the city’s wall had been broken down and that its gates had been burned by fire, he sat down and wept. Nehemiah wept and fasted for three days, asking God for "mercy on his people". Finally, his burning passion led him to ask God for favor in approaching the King to get help to rebuild the wall.

There are so many times in my life where I can see myself in Nehemiah at this moment. He was experiencing a moment of such grief and heart ache that we was suddenly inspired to go out and DO something. When I first came to Cleveland as a youth student I saw the need and destruction this city had endured. It made me want to stand up and do something. I related with the children of the neighborhood and wanted to give them hope for their future. Being a sophomore in high school at the time, it wasn't logical for me to actually move to Cleveland. So I wrote it off as just a dream.

Isn't it common that we never get beyond the point of being deeply moved about a purpose God has give us? I've related to Nehemiah in praying when a passionate desire at first points to purpose, but unrelated to Nehemiah, my emotions may never actually lead to an action. Countless times I can tell you after I was first ignited by a passion, I would take a large inventory of what following God's purpose for me would take, and then decide that I can't do it because I don't have what it takes or because I didn't actually believe He could possibly work through me.

It wasn't until I took the leap of faith and moved to Cleveland that I really started to hear all of the reasons why us humans can't actually do the things we are called to do. We lack money, time, knowledge, courage, skills, expertise, we're too young, too old, over qualified, or not qualified. Married, single divorced. We keep shoving and pushing our passion until the point where the voice of purpose is silent. We often forget that God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called and that He will move our obstacles.

How many times have you ignored your ideas or disowned your desires for fear of failure or being criticized. We fill in our question marks of our future with shortcomings and determine that it would be best to just stop dreaming and stop wanting. We've stuck with whats safe, even if it kills our hearts cry. We've dried our tears and determined not to move forward. It's completely and utterly tragic that we give up before we have taken one solitary step towards God's ultimate plan.

I see now that at the very start of when God points me to a purpose, it's so easy to brush off, because right then it's just an internal motivation.  There is not one thing in my circumstances validating my desires and others tell me that its not possible. At that moment all I have is an internal desire telling me "GO". And at that point, what you do can change your life entirely.

Moving here to Cleveland with the thought that I was following what God wanted me to do with starting a children's program, was actually a part of a plan where I thought I would fail. In which my failure was directing me to something much bigger than just myself. To see that somehow way back before my birth there was going to be a war in Liberia where a village was going to have to seek refuge in the U.S. That no, they aren't going to meet me where I grew up in New Jersey, but I was going to meet them in Cleveland, Ohio.That the first child I met in Cleveland on a mission trip was a girl that was going to unleash a new world of culture I had no business trying to learn. But that God knew before time where I was heading and how I would end up then going to Liberia in 2015 to be trained to lead international trips through UMVIM in the United Methodist Church. Can I tell you I NEVER saw this coming?

It only makes me imagine how many organizations have not been started, books not written, children not adopted, or businesses never begun, because we decide somewhere between passion and action of the first step that it’s not possible? If God is calling you to a new purpose, don't make a pros and cons list, don't talk about it. GO and PRAY. Ask God for wisdom. In the same way Nehemiah did, pray, plan, and take that first step. God will move the rest out of the way for you.

With great pleasure I am announcing I will be going to Ganta, Liberia in February 2015. With working at Nehemiah Mission we have partnered with the Ganta United Methodist Mission Station aka (GUMMS).

GUMMS consists of a hospital and school in Ganta, Nimba County, Liberia. As is the rest of Liberia, Ganta is recovering from a tumultuous period of civil wars which took place from the early 80's until 2003. Though the country is in a time of peace, the reconstruction and recovery is slow as the civil wars left over 250,000 dead and country's infrastructure in shambles. GUMMS serves over 600 students K-12 at the school and operates a 135 bed hospital as well as an agricultural and vocational training. The Facilities are in tremendous need of repair and reconstruction, supplies like textbooks and even the most basic medical supplies are in short supply or non-existent.

With also working with GUMMS, I will be able to connect with many of the family members of the Liberian Refugees I work with here in Cleveland as they are aware of my arrival in February 2015. So with that, keep in touch and up to speed with updates about my preparation of my trip and my continuing ministry with Nehemiah.

For anyone who wishes to get involved you can contact me at

beckyltrout@gmail.com  

God Bless!

 Becky