I thought I wanted to be a missionary. I was just a little kiddo, but I was pretty sure I was supposed to be a missionary when I grew up. I never lost the dream, but then the dream became different; medicine became the passion I pursued. Surely God could still use me in the mission field.
I was blessed to go on mission trips, still thinking that my destiny involved jungles and huts. I was able to travel to several different locations, with several different roles. One thing I found, chickens seemed to be a standard. One particular location we were even housed right beside a chicken processing house. Those sounds…not easy to forget.
But as my profession and life proceeded, the old dreams became….a has-been. I outgrew it. My final mission trip was enough, I’d done my time as a missionary. It was on to better things. Time progressed; I was given a couple of opportunities to go ‘to the mission field’ again but it was never quite right. I became comfortable with my life, settled in. It wasn’t an easy life, but surely it was easier than what I remembered / pictured missionary life would have been for me.
My final move in life was one where I felt the pull of God saying “this area is devoid of Me.” A lot of self-made and just-making-it people, it was nothing like the jungles and villages, we had running water and computers. But I fit right in. And I got to start talking about God, a little at a time. And it might have made a little difference; but my corner felt so small. There was no way I was touching as many lives as I would have if I’d been a missionary. But I was doing what I was supposed to, where I was supposed to. And I needed to be content with where God had placed me. And I was. I am.
One day, early morning, I was walking to work, and my thoughts were interrupted by the crow of a rooster. Now I don’t own chickens, I don’t have a need of chickens, and I wouldn’t even say I like chickens necessarily. But this day, that rooster crowing brought my thoughts to the memories of other countries, vastly different smells, and the lost dreams of a little kid. I was not a missionary. Or was I? Did it matter what country, what town, how many? Not to God. He’d brought me full-circle, using my trainings, back to the dream I’d thought was unimportant. A has-been.
Now, every time I hear the rooster while walking to work, I’m picturing my work very much a mission field. My mission field. Rooster and all.
‘For I know the plans I have for you’ declares the Lord; ‘Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.’
Jeremiah 29:11
