Join the Journey

I am on a journey. I don’t know the route I’ll be taking. But there are two things that I DO know. One, I desperately need my Redeemer God who promises over and over through His Word to NEVER leave me. And two, by His design, I need all of you to journey with me through the next three years to pray for me, to encourage me to press on, to share with me what God is teaching you, and most importantly to worship our God together. Worship is the ultimate purpose of missions. It is celebrating who He is and what He has done by proclaiming him with our lives and our words to all nations.

Let me first give you a broad timeline; then I will tell you the most current step. God has blessed me with the privilege of studying at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) for the past 2 years. I am enrolled in a program nicknamed “2+2” implying that students will study on campus in Wake Forest, NC for two years, then serve with the International Mission Board (IMB) for two years. I eloquently stretched that two years on campus into three. My on campus studies will be completed in May 2013. Then I will train for two month with the IMB and deploy by October 2013. I will serve overseas as an IMB missionary for 20 months, then return home and graduate from SEBTS.

So I’m sure most of you are asking, “Where are you going?”

As you join me on this journey, you really aren’t behind at all. And as you ask that question you step LIVE into the life of Katie Kasey because that is the key question right now. In two weeks, September 21 & 22, I will be going to Richmond, VA to a Job Expo with the IMB to see available jobs, to hear from missionary representatives from every region in the world, and for further interviews. (I completed the initial application, initial interview in February this year, and was invited to this Expo.) At the end of the 2nd day, each applicant is required to give top the job preferences. This will be a great weekend, but the decision making can be very overwhelming. And you know me, I am characteristically indecisive. I way to often stress simply over ordering from a menu! Yet I have less than 48 hours to “decide” where I’m going to spend the next two years of my life! My prayer is that I will be clearly led by the Spirit, who is the peace and wisdom of God, and not by emotions.

So I ask you to join me here. In a way the journey is just beginning, but then it’s really been going on far longer than I even realized. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” In that same chapter, God told Jeremiah up front that it was going to be hard, but He promised to be with him and to deliver him. Every day, God is preparing me and chiseling away at my pride and selfishness. He is teaching me the basics again and again, patiently allowing those truths to sink deeply into my heart. My daddy (who is also my pastor) said this past Sunday at church that our walks with Christ are personal but they are not meant to be private. Won’t you join me in God’s great work of making His name great to all people in all nations? Let it start with me!