Moving to Guam

    You're moving where?!? What on earth would you want to do that for? You'll be gone for HOW LONG? Is your family ok with this? Questions like these fire rapidly as soon as I drop the bombshell that I am moving to Guam this July. This decision has been preempted by months of praying, hours of conversations with family and trusted friends, and not a few tears, yet how do I explain all this to the individual waiting with an incredulous and expectant gaze? I write this hoping that my written response may be slightly more coherent and comprehensive than the one-liners that I have been pitching out.
    This last year has been one of turmoil and difficult change. One of the more difficult decisions was to leave the school where I taught for the last five years. God graciously provided me with another place of employment, after the school year had already begun, yet I knew that this assignment would only be temporary. Throughout this move and other changes in my life, God has been working in my heart to let go of anything that I have been clinging to for security and to hope in Christ alone. I wish I could say the letting go has always been easy, but God has had to pry my fingers off in more than a few areas. As God been cleaning up my life and whacking off areas that just needed to go, He has left me with the settled conviction that He would soon be asking more of me, and that I needed to be ready for something that would be way over my head.
     In January I reconnected over facebook with a friend that I had not seen since college, over eight years ago. When I learned that she had been teaching in Guam, I began to think about and pray about the possibility of teaching in Guam. Mission work has been a prayer of mine, since I surrendered my life to Christ at eleven years of age, but up until now the timing and circumstances have never been right. My friend in Guam was so gracious to answer pages of questions as I began to seriously consider this move. The more I learned, the more interested I became, and I began to pray that God would start slamming doors, rather loudly so I wouldn't miss it, if this was not of Him. After completing an online application, the principals contacted me about meeting with a couple that just so happened to be in my area in the next few days. After interviewing with them, I was even more convinced that this was the place that God would have me to serve next.
    In the midst of the interviewing and waiting process, God has been so gracious to work in the hearts of my parents and friends, and I have received an overwhelming voice of support for this move. Although I know there will be moments of doubt, uncertainty, fear, and loneliness, I am thoroughly convinced that God is asking me to step out in a new phase of trust. Greater than any element of fear is the absolute certainty that God's presence will be with me, His love will sustain me, and I am going to experience a greater display of His power and goodness than ever before. I am excited for the journey that I am about to begin, and I am clinging to a favorite passage of mine in Psalm 73. "Whom have I in heaven but you, and there is nothing, no one, that I desire upon earth besides You...My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever...But as for me, the nearness of my God has been my good."
    So, why am I moving  to a country where I know no one, signing a contract for three years to teach 3rd grade in a mission school? I'm going because I believe that's what God has planned for me, and I want nothing more than to follow Him, clinging to Christ alone.