I want to be a …

Think back to when you were in kindergarten and your
teacher asked you “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I taught
kindergarten last year and the answers can range from a firefighter or
policeman to a princess. For me I think in kindergarten I wanted to be
a veterinarian, but that quickly changed and I remember my whole life
waiting for the day that I would be a mom. I’m sure at some point in my
life when I was asked what I wanted to be I would have told you that I
wanted to be a mom, but somehow in our culture today, that is not seen as enough, so to be politically correct I changed my “what I want to be” to fit the world. I decided early in life that I wanted to be a teacher (until I could be a mom, but I didn’t tell people that part) because that way I could be around children and watch them as they grow. So from that point on, whenever that was, that became my answer, I want to be a teacher, but inside I was silently screaming, I want to be a mom!

I
knew in middle school that I was going to be a teacher, because it was
a job that if I did end up keeping it after I got married, I would be
able to do it with children and a family. So in high school I started
working with younger classes and loved it. I found a college that had
early childhood education as a degree and that is where I ended up. I
never had a crisis of changing
my major seven times, it was always education. I had built up this idea
of what my life would be like. However my life did not turn
out the way I had planned it, God had a different plan in mind. For as
long as I can remember all I wanted to be was a wife and a mother. I know how simple, there is so much more out there, says the world,
but I didn’t care, that is what my heart has been passionate about. I
can remember standing out on the patio at my house when I was sixteen
holding a friend of the family’s baby thinking, could I just skip to
this, I didn’t care about the experience of finishing high school or
college. I just wanted to get to the point where I got to stay at home
with my babies and watch them grow and teach them. However, eleven
years later and all of those life experiences that I’m glad I didn’t
miss, I’m still in a place where I am waiting for my husband and my
children only to discover that maybe God has a different avenue to get
me to where He wants me to be which will ultimately make me happier
than I could have imagined.

This all came together for me when I was in Africa in the summer of 2008 and Kriek (one of the missionaries there) mentioned that they wanted American teachers to come to help teach in Swaziland, my ears perked up. I could do that. I found out later that the idea was just a dream at this phase, a vision of what is to come for the care points in Swaziland, but my heart was awakened. I sat in the dirt with a baby sleeping in my arms one day in Africa
and heard a teammate say “does it get any better than this?” “No” I
thought, but that thought was interrupted by another teammate who said
to her that it was like the Mercy Me song that says “If home is where
the heart is, then I’m out of place.” I could not believe how much that touched me. I continued the lyrics in my head, “I’ve never been more homesick than now.” That was the feeling I could not identify earlier on this trip. I was homesick, not for my bed or my family in the US, but for Africa. I could not stand the idea of leaving. I had to return home after this trip, but a big part of my heart was left in Africa, with those kids in Swaziland who need someone to love them.

I
had talked to Kriek and Jumbo about joining them in ministry and they
told me at that time that what they needed help doing was mostly
administrative, which I could do, but that is not my passion. I
continued to pray about it and decided that I felt called to Africa.
When I talked with Kriek and Jumbo again about a possible “job
description” it was for me to have a tutoring program at Thulwane care
point. I would be there most days when the kids came after school, they
would eat like usual, then I would have a tutoring program set for
them. I would be there to help with the things they did not understand.
I would also be helping to make sure the kids that are sponsored are
still coming and that those that are new are being profiled to get
sponsored. I would be the eyes and ears of that care point to make sure that any medical needs that the kids have are being met. I left that meeting with a one thought about the whole thing, I get to be a mom.

I
always wanted a big family, I just never knew how big it would be. I
know there are things about my ministry that will be very different
from when I have children of my own, but for now, my heart leaps for
joy to think that I get to be a mom to those kids who may not have
anyone else in their lives to love them like that.

              I get to be a mom!