The Feed

by Kristin DeHaan

I have often wondered why God sent me to Cambodia back in 2007. When I returned home from that time I knew why I had been there and what God was calling me to, but I have forgotten. I’m writing this to remember and to give an honest perspective on when missions trip stay overseas and don’t carry home.

This journey started after pursuing my life as I thought it should look. I went to the Aveda Institute for cosmetology and started working hard to get to where I wanted, but quickly got caught up in the lifestyle of the world around me. I was no longer a light in darkness – only a sad partaker of what the world had to offer, which is nothing. It left me so empty and totally broken before the Lord. I remember praying everyday for God to show me what He wanted me to do and I told Him I would do ANYTHING. I just wanted out of where I was.

The summer of 2006 I quit my job and moved to Michigan to spend the summer with my grandparents.  I went from living in the city of Chicago to Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference (my grandparents live there). Now I know why I was there that summer and it was God. He had me there to get quiet and listen to him and I realized that when you ask of God he answers. Missions was being laid on my heart that whole summer and I just didn’t know what that could mean for me as a hairstylist. I was trying to figure out if I should go back to school and trying to sort all of that out but God was having me wait on him and in the waiting he strengthened my faith. After that summer and after I had moved back to Chicago I was put in contact with a family who was heading to Cambodia for a few months to do some missions work. They invited me to come along and said I would be helpful because they were working in an after care center for women who had been rescued from the sex trade and teaching them skills – one of them being hairstyling. I had no idea where Cambodia was, I did not know anything about sex trafficking and I did not know this family very well but I knew I was going to go. As I prepared for this trip God confirmed to me in so many ways that this is where he wanted me.

I left that January for three months and without the family I was supposed to be going with (they had to back out of the trip for personal reasons).  Those three months were life-changing. God woke me up to where his heart was and that is helping the oppressed, the poor, the needy. I fell in love with a group of girls that didn’t speak my language but knew that I loved them and I know they loved me. I did not have much to give but I gave myself. I gave my time. I gave my heart. The skills I taught them were not why I was there it’s just what got me there.

I came home from that trip knowing I would go back. I really have vision in my heart for those girls and would love to be a part of that over there, but I have been distracted. A piece of my heart is still there but I have told myself I don’t need to be there. Whether I’m there or not God will fulfill his purpose. I have laid those desires down knowing that I can help with the same sort of injustices here in the U.S. but I have not. How did I go from living in such faith to being back here and getting caught up in the life I didn’t want to live. I’m not in any bad lifestyle, but stagnant in my pursuit of living as Christ has called me to. I’m writing this as one who has felt God’s call on their life but feels as if I’ve chosen the “easy” route instead of the “all in.”  But honestly I feel more scared and more unsure of what I’m doing by not giving everything to God. I have this twisted thinking – that if I give God my life I will have to give up this and this and this…but by holding onto what I am I feel as though I am missing out on a life totally satisfied in Christ. I know I do not need to live in Cambodia to do this so why was it so much easier while I was there? Maybe because it was just me and I only had God.

All this to say is I’m asking why do we compromise? Why do we get distracted? Why do we not think God wants to use us for a greater purpose and that no matter who we are and what we do that if we are willing and available God will use us in ways we could never imagine. Because then it’s Him doing it and not us. I want to be all in. I want to be a disciple of Christ that is “one who never looks back and has no further plans of his own.” (a quote I read that summer of 2006.) I’m writing this to awaken my heart to remember where I was when I was totally surrendered to God because that is where I want to be again.

To lean more about one of the organizations Kristin was working with in Cambodia check out Remember Nhu: www.remembernhu.org