  What a night. I am really tired so I am going to try to make this a short entry (everyone who knows me very well is lauging out loud at that right now). Tonight I had a flat tire on Sulpher Springs road, out in the country near the church. So of course I called PapaRob to be my knight in shining armor (if girls were meant to change tires, God wouldn't have invented cell phones). So I got the spare tire out and waited for Rob to come rescue me. Then the guy whose yard I was parked in saw me sitting out there and came to help me.
We didn't make very much conversation, just names, thanks, etc. Turns out he was one of Rob's friends (like, who isn't). Anyway, the guy was a Christian, too. So Rob was like, hey did you tell him anything about Jesus. And I was like, no. So he finished changing the tire, and Rob said, "tell him your testimony.
" So I got embarassed, but started talking. After a few mins, Rob said, "Tell him what God did in your life while you were in Texas. " So I started talking about it. Then, when I got back in the car, I started thinking about it. What exactly had happened in Texas. As I began to look at everything that has happened in the last three years to get me to this point, I am just amazed at how God gets his plans to work, one step at a time.
When I left for college, I planned on getting 3 things: a husband, a degree, and the training I needed to be a missionary. What I got was an ex-fiance, a lot of lifelessons, and the training I needed to be me. I never wanted to do childrens ministry, or street ministry. I qualified for work study, and my chices were work at a Boys and Girls Club or do paperwork for a professor. So i jumped on the Boys and Girls Club job. I was timid at first, and the workers there didn't think I would be any good at it.
But after a week or two, I started loosening up, and I found out I was actually good at it. I could take a group of over 100 kids between the ages of 6 and 13 and get them to listen to me. Most of our kids came from high risk nieghborhoods and broken homes, and I fell in love with them. I loved my job, putting in twice as many hours as they could pay me for the first year, then taking a position with them as Director of Educational Programming. I eventually just knew it was time to move on, and I was heart-broken. I loved those kids.
They loved me. We had a bond deeper than any of the other staff. I cried harder over having to quit that job than almost anything else. But I still didn't see any future in children's ministry. I had decided to do urban ministry instead of cross-cultural, but never knew that it would have anything to do with kids. Then, I was supposed to go to Israel over spring break, just over a year ago.
They cancelled the trip do to the instability and violence. So I decided to go to the Los Angeles Dream Center instead. I began to read about it, and it was like passion just rose up in me. I was so excited about the trip. When I was there, what impressed me the most, was that the interns and staff there give their entire lives to ministry. It isn't on of the many roles they play; it's who they are, and it's who I wanted to be.
I still didn't think about doing kids ministry, but wanted to do a Dream Center. When I came home at Christmas, I was talking to Rob about this, and I had been praying about moving back to Indiana. When Rob was talking to me about the internship, and developing your dream ministry, I blurted out that Metro Kidz was what I would want to do. I haven't told Rob this, but I didn't realize that was my dream ministry until the moment I said it, and it just hit me. Then Rob was like, I have the trailor, I just need someone to run the ministry, and on the outside I was like wow and on the inside I was like holy cow. But I knew then that it was God.
Now, I've told several people this before, but I feel like I am doing what I was created to do. It is the most incredible feeling in the world. It is amazing how God used all the little things in texas, the things that I just thought were details, to paint the bigger picture. I can't wait to see what is in store next. I have been doing a lot of dreaming and praying lately. More about that later--gotta tell PapaRob the details before I tell the rest of the world. 
