Kidnapped Royalty- Part I

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With every step I took, I knew that I was no longer returning "home", but instead I was now leaving it.

The plane taxied the tarmac as some of the passengers began to shift, stretching their cramped legs and unbuckling their seat belts before the "unbuckle your seat belt" sign had dinged.

As I scanned the cabin, I saw eyes full of both weariness and excitement. Some- blank, as people from all walks of life impatiently waited for the captain to release us to stand up, gather our belongings, and exit the cabin.

I had finally arrived. All my dreaming and efforts to coordinate this trip were finally coming together. I could almost taste it as it was becoming a reality. As I disembarked from the plane and made my way into the large room where I would claim my luggage, I could see the hard-faced guards with semi-automatic weapons pacing the room, eyeing the travel-weary tourists and non-tourists who were slowly gathering around the luggage carousel. I had already learned that a horrible 30-year civil war had only just ended a few years before I'd arrived that summer and that I would see guards like this, patrolling everywhere I'd go over the next two months. I wasn't afraid, though. I was completely enchanted with the thought that I would be spending the next two months in this beautiful country! I was actually getting the opportunity to love and serve not only the people of Guatemala, but the missionaries who served them, as well. What an honor and how EXCITING!

My earliest memory of God "calling me to be a missionary", for lack of better terms, happened when I was lying across my parents' back seat when I was 12 years old. I was listening to Carman (can I get an amen!?) sing about "God's kidnapped royalty" and BAM! With tears streaming down my face, in an instant I knew that one day God would use me to help Him re-claim his "kidnapped royalty" all over the world. Knowing that some day I too would serve as a missionary, standing in front of the luggage carousel that day, I COULD NOT WAIT to get started serving both a couple and a people I was certain I'd grow to love.

Over the next two months, I would work countless hours with missionaries, John and Sharon Harvey. I served them in any way I could. I cleaned anything I could get my hands on, helped to organize medicine cabinets and sort supplies Sharon had received from churches in the states for her eye clinic. I also helped to coordinate and translate for visiting teams as we traveled the countryside, providing medical clinics in rural mountain villages. I helped to do just about anything that was asked of me of that summer.

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With each passing day, the people and culture of Guatemala were being woven into my heart more and more. Every time I looked into the kind eyes of an elderly woman whose toothless smile had won my heart or wrapped my arms around the children who ran alongside me as I walked through that small town of Chichicastenango , I knew with increasing certainty that one day, some how some way, God would allow me to serve the people of this beautiful country.

As I finished my first summer working in the clinic in Chichi and made plans to return to the states, my heart broke. Eyes brimming with tears, I hugged the necks of each of my new friends and turned to board the plane. With every step I took, I knew that I was no longer returning "home", but that instead, I was now leaving it.

Finishing the next year of college, my junior year in nursing school, was difficult, to say the least. I'd been completely wrecked for Guatemala and the day that I would return to continue working arm in arm with the friends I'd grown to love so dearly could not come soon enough. So, after my final exams of my junior year, I boarded the plane in St. Louis and headed back to Guatemala where I would work for three months this time.

My second time to work in Guatemala proved to be just as exciting, challenging, and adventure-filled as the first. But there was a difference this time when I went... In the year leading up to this second summer-trip, I'd begun dreaming of moving to Chichi after graduating from college and working in the clinic permanently. I'd already begun to prepare my family that I would likely move after graduation so they could be preparing themselves, as well.

Little did I know that God had very different plans in store for me than I'd originally thought. And thank God He did.