My call to missions came the summer before my senior year of high school while on a one-week mission trip to Charleston. At the end of that week, I knew that I wanted to continue serving the Lord, but for more than just one week a year.
My youth minister in Missouri helped connect me with the North American Mission Board, and the following summer I was able to serve as a summer missionary back in Charleston. I loved serving in Charleston so much that I moved there for college so that I could serve while getting my degree. I consider Charleston the place where my heart grew, where I grew up spiritually.
During one of my last semesters in college, I took an introduction to missions class where I had to write a paper on a specific people group. I was unsure which people group to write about, so I went to the professor’s office to speak with him about it. He slid a piece of paper across his desk and said, “Here, why don’t you write about?-?.” He named a people group deeply oppressed by local religion, government and culture. While writing the paper, the Lord broke my heart in the face of their hopelessness and their seeking ways out of such oppression. And like in Isaiah 6, I cried out to the Lord, “Send me!” That was it. I knew the Lord had plans for me to serve him overseas.
At the beginning of my application process with the International Mission Board, each of the candidates was given a book, “Parents as Partners: Supporting Your Family as They Serve Overseas.” I took a copy for each of my parents and decided to skim it so that I knew exactly what I was giving my parents. One article has stayed with me. Ed Cox, director of the IMB’s international prayer strategy office, wrote the article titled, “Partnering in Prayer.” He writes, “?’I pray for you every day.’ This phrase is second only to ‘I love you’ to the heart of a missionary.”
I find this statement true in my life. Already I have had many life changes resulting in a roller coaster of emotions, and I am not even in South Asia yet. I know that the prayers of those around me have encouraged me and lifted me up in my hardest times. It is only by your prayers and God’s strength that I will even have the courage to board the plane, much less have the courage to share the gospel.
I spoke at a Baptist church one Wednesday night, and it was so exciting to see how many questions the congregation had. One person asked for ways the congregation could pray for me even now. Wow, I was hardly thinking about myself in the midst of explaining how to reach the people group. I do need prayer. I need prayer that I would continue to stay in the Word, daily seeking time alone with God and his truth. I need prayer that the Lord would give me the boldness I need to share the gospel. And my journeyman partner and I need prayer that we would be unified and continue to seek ways to stay unified.
Just before I left the church, my youth pastor got up and pleaded on my behalf that if anyone in the congregation thought of me at any point in time, 2 o’clock in the morning or whenever, he asked that they would pray for me. He said it may mean I was having a rough day or that I may be sharing the gospel, that the Lord may have placed that thought of me in their mind because my ministry needed prayer in that moment.
Ed Cox goes on to write in the article, “Your prayers have become the vehicle through which the Lord is blessing an entire people group.” Whether your prayers are for this people group or for me, that people group will be blessed, because if I am in a right relationship with the Lord, if I am bold to share the gospel and am unified with my partner, then the people group will be blessed. It seems selfish to ask you to pray for me, but I keep coming back to the fact that I cannot do this alone. I need your support, I need your prayers, and, most importantly, I need God. Without these, there is no reason for me to board that plane.
So before I even arrive in South Asia, I want to thank you for your support, for your encouragement, and mostly for your prayers.
*Name changed for security. Tombaugh recently graduated from a Charleston college. She wrote this article before leaving the United States. She is now in South Asia serving a two-year term as a journeyman with the International Mission Board.