God's Call to Belgium

As I am preparing to go to Belgium, many people have asked me why I am going to Belgium and how God called me there. Although not everything can be put into words, here is my attempt to relay what God put into my heart. The first time that I had ever really heard and took note of the country "Belgium" was in my Senior year of High School, yet God had started to work in my heart for going there long before that.

In my sophomore year of High School, I asked God a question that took Him a few years to answer. After hearing my brother's passionate cry for the need of people to share the love of God around the world and my heart pounding, I asked God whether He wanted me to go. Then I closed my journal and didn't ponder any longer on that question. Yet in December of 2000, I was looking through my old journal and came upon that passage, it stole my breath away. At that moment I was currently in Belgium as a post-High School exchange student, yet I knew that was just my "cover" for being Christ's ambassador there. I was in Belgium reading that journal entry and seeing the fulfillment of God's answer to my question. Yet even then, I did not know that there would be more.

I started College thinking that I had my life all planned out, to become an International Business woman, yet apparently God had different plans. My sophomore year I started to just really give all of my future plans to the Lord, and He started working in my heart the idea of working among students on campus in the states. Yet somehow, it just didn't fit, so I prayed what I now call the "fatal prayer." I simply said, "But Lord, I have more of a heart for serving in a foreign country than I do for working on campus' here in the states." Two months later, I heard about a need in Brussels, Belgium to work with University students. My heart leapt.

That summer I had previously planned on stopping into Belgium on the way to a service trip in Slovakia, and now I also wanted to find out what this "Students For Christ" (SFC) in Brussels was all about. I met Deanne Turley, and as she began to describe the work of SFC, I kept thinking "Oh THAT's why I did that! THAT's why this happened. THAT's why I am going to do that!" It was almost like my thoughts were arrows that pointed all my past in preparation for this event, Belgium. And so I began to pray. I wanted to know for certain that this was God's will for me to go back, and not just my own will to be back in Belgium a country that I loved so much.

As I prayed, things became more settled. And I really could not see any way that I could not go to Belgium, and I then said "yes" to God, "yes Lord, I'll go to Belgium." It really was not hard to say, because I loved the country so much, but as I said it, I knew that this was where God wanted me for this season of my life. He wanted me to be in Belgium working with University Students.