I fell in love with a country...

over the past couple of months i've been obsessed with Katie Davis's story and her heart for Uganda. from the first blog i read of hers, i felt drawn to her and thought to myself, "she gets me!" it's hard to explain to people my love for brazil, i get a lot of "why brazil? we have poverty here. we have orphans in america. people on your street need to know Jesus. your family is here..." i agree 100% with those statements, there's kingdom work to be done all over the world and God calls us to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19) and that includes where i am now. God has provided opportunities to share His love with people i work with, live next to, my students, my family and strangers...my time here isn't being wasted, but my heart still longs for brazil. i've prayed over my testimony for months, parts of my journey with Christ are shameful and filled with a lot of painful memories, but at the end of every heartache...there He stands. He has not only gotten me through every situation but He's been glorified and His plan has slowly unfolded from every experience i've had since college. i'm about to share things with you that i've never shared with anyone, but God's been telling me for months that i need to let my guard down and let Him work through my shameful, yet beautiful, story of His grace and perfect plan to reach hearts of others. so here it goes...

In May of 2005, I first stepped foot in Brazil and furthering God's kingdom was the last thing on my mind! All I could think about was being able to spend every day of the next 4 months with the man I love, but God sure had a different plan. For nearly 4 years, my love for Brazil stemmed from my love for this incredible man and his family. My summers spent there were centered around a life I was building with him. The key words there are “the life I was building”...though I made decisions about my relationship prayerfully, I never stopped to truly seek God's plan or question this heavy burden He had placed on my heart for this amazing country. I never thought twice about Brazil before I met Felipe but fell in love with everything about the people and culture as soon as I got there. God's word tells us that He already has a plan for us, and no matter how hard we disobey Him or follow after our own selfish desires, His plan will prevail! I always knew that God had a bigger plan for me there than being a wife of a Brazilian, but it took having to give up what I wanted more than anything in my life to truly see what He had in store.

Felipe and I spent 3 months apart and 4 months together over the next 3 years. He and I had planned to be married one summer while I was visiting. I had met with an immigration lawyer here to have all the necessary paperwork and couldn't wait to be his wife and be able to stay with him while he finished school so we could stop spending months apart. One day we went to get married and it turns out I didn't have my birth certificate stamped, an oversight that changed our plans. I was scheduled to go back home in a couple of weeks so I didn't have time to send it back to the states to get it stamped and have it back to us on time. We were both devastated and all I could see it as was a sign that we weren't meant to be married but he was eternally optimistic and assured me that it would all work out and immediately tried to come up with a plan B. Over the next year, the distance became harder for both of us, our plans just weren't lining up. God kept tugging on my heart that this was not the relationship he wanted for me but I ignored it. Felipe was an amazing man...he was insanely intelligent, hard working, supportive, driven, funny and loved everything about me. I never imagined loving someone so much or feeling so loved but God constantly reminded me that the man He has for me will not only love me but also love Him with all of his heart. I prayed over Felipe's heart for God since the day I met him, we had conversations about it almost daily and I just knew that God would draw him close through our relationship. Felipe always respected my relationship with God and loved talking to me about it, he went to church with me every Sunday and even prayed with me. But our relationship was not centered around God because we didn't both love God.

Once I moved to Tennessee and he spent some time in England studying, we grew further and further apart and both agreed that we needed time to ourselves. We had both sacrificed a lot of ourselves to be together. He spent every one of his summers in the states with me instead of traveling and I had given up all of my dreams to be with him and help him follow his dreams, and I never regretted it for a minute but it weighed heavy on Felipe that I had sacrificed so much. It wasn't an easy decision for either of us and we really couldn't explain to anyone why we felt this way, but we knew it was the right decision. We still kept in touch, which made it harder for both of us and finally we thought it was best that we not talk anymore. Of course I thought this was a stupid idea after about a week, but I respected him and trusted him so we stopped all communication for months.

After this painful breakup, I was devastated and never felt further from my God. I went months without having a conversation with my ridiculously faithful and patient God. I was angry and confused and wanted nothing to do with a God that took away my best friend and I couldn't even begin to see him in the situation. I spent months drinking and staying out late with people that encouraged me that this was the way to move on, embrace the single life! My best friend, Kym, wrote me a long letter expressing her concerns about my choices, it was kind of a wake up call for me but I still wasn't ready to forgive God (as if I'm that important, huh?) Kym and I have been best friends since 10^th grade. She is the best person I know and the only person in this world that truly knows me and my heart, but her words sometimes angered me more. She was married to an amazing man that loved God, owned a house, had a great job, a baby on the way, had an awesome family back home ...things seemed to always fall into place for her and I had become so bitter that her loving words had little impact on me. After the letter from Kym, I did slow down a little. I was more aware of how much I had been drinking, I could see that the men I was spending my time had no respect for me and that I missed having godly friends. Less than a year after Felipe and I broke up I jumped into long unhealthy and ungodly relationship with another man. This was the beginning of 3 years of a life of sin and I had become someone I wasn't. Throughout this relationship, I still couldn't stop thinking about Brazil, my heart longed to be there but it didn't make sense for me to go back and the man I was with had no desire to go to a place where Felipe and I shared so many memories.

I finally reached a point in my life where I knew I needed more of God. More than going to church occasionally, more than praying over meals, more than begging him to change my boyfriend or give me the strength to forgive him and “fix” him. One night I was so deeply sad that I cried out to God, “Why did you put me in these situations? Why did you bring me Felipe just to take him away, why did you allow me to get so caught up in another relationship that doesn't honor you?” I remember in that moment feeling God tell me, “I never brought you to this point, I was never part of any of this! But I've been waiting for you.”

Around that time, an old boss of mine, Brad Bynum, invited me to go to Lifepoint. It was initially weird going back to church and actively seeking God, rather than going on Sundays out of obligation. I met people that loved God and had a heart for missions, and specifically for Brazil! I had become so used to trying to control my life, getting caught up in sinful relationships and living a life that didn't reflect Christ that it was hard to surrender that control. Over the course of a year, God drew me back to Him and back to Brazil through my constant surrender of every area of my life to Him. Last summer I went back to Brazil, but this time for a very different reason. After spending a day loving on kids and families that so desperately longed for love, a love of my Savior through our hugs, time and gifts. The first night I was there I broke down and thanked God for taking control of my life and bringing me back to where I had longed to be. I could go on forever about what God showed me that week, but I'll save that for the next blog!

God is crazy good, and His plan is crazy perfect. Brazil has always been where God wanted me, but my stubbornness got in the way...but His plan always prevails!

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"It was only after God brought me to a place where I didn't want to be that He brought me to a place I truly longed to be." ~Anonymous

‎"Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed him." ~C.S. Lewis"