Here I Am, Send Me

So I've been challenged this last week to look at my life.
My calling.

I grew up in a missionary based church. I still remember the lady who lived in the Philippines staying at our house, she had cool wooden instruments, woven trinkets and really neat stories and pictures of dark skinned children with big white smiles.

I don't know if I thought much beyond that as a child but I did know those pictures and stories stuck with me. I always wanted to go.

Living without electricity, in sandy, dusty places has always intrigued me. When I learned about the "wild west' in school my heart ached for days on the prairie, making my own bread and soap, sewing my own clothes and riding in a horse and buggy.

Eeerrr... (sound of a record scratching)
I don't live there:
in the wild west
or
the Philippines.

I live in Florida. In a house.
With air conditioning, bought clothing, Publix bread and a mini-van.

But my desire is still there. My desire for people.
I happen to have a real heart for the youth of our nation, more specifically the youth of the area surrounding my home, you know the comfy home 3 miles from the beach.
Anyway, it was brought to my attention recently that if I was called to the distant land of the Philippines or Kenya or Indonesia I would have quite a learning curve ahead of me.
Language, culture and more.

I'm not called there. I'm called here to the "Globals" or "Digitals".
I've been called to a group of people who talk differently,
act differently,
live differently; yes we share a common language, a common stomping ground a common "spoiledness' of living where we do; but we're different. Too often as American adults we forget that our students are living in a different era. They do not know life without cell phone and internet, where we had to travel to see London they can walk the streets using Google. I had pen pals who tapered off after a few months where my children can talk to and watch videos of their friends all over the world via youtube.
Crazy, mindblowing when you think of how quick things have changed.

So I've been challenged to really get to know the culture in which I've been called to be a missionary. I guess to some degree I've already attempted to embrace it.

Myspace
Cell Phone
Faceook
Texting
Twitter

All this still sits in some parts of my head as "bad", afterall I was raised with the notion of screens being brainrotters, not good to be in front of.
While to some degree I still see the negative aspects of too much screen time, I've learned to embrace this digital, global generation.

To be sent to the nation for Christ means to know the nation I've been sent to.
So I've been challenged to view my mission field a little more seriously and to hopefully pass on my new mission mind-set to this generation of doers and changers so they too may see themselves as missionaries in their schools, classrooms, homes and jobs. That they may rise up and be the generation that brings the church out of the poverty it is currently sitting in.

Love, peace and I heart cool felt bags,
-Michelle