Keying In

I've officially been out of college a year, having graduated with a video production degree, and in that time I've been seeking what vision God has for my life going forth. For the past 11 months, I've been working at a youth center, Wesley Chapel Mission Center. There, I've been involved with the 5th-8th grade program, mentoring, tutoring, discipling, and building relationships with the students from Over the Rhine that attend our program. And it's been a blast. During this time, I've seen God refocusing what His vision is for my life, or rather, keying me into it.

Back in 2011, I got the chance to go to China with Youth With a Mission, to work with several special needs orphanages. And there, my heart really changed. While hanging out with a child named Didi, I became overwhelmed with the thought that, the love I was showing him in just hanging out with him, praying for him, and caring for him, was quite possibly the only experience of Christ's love that he had received in his life. My heart was broken, thinking about this. If any of you know my own testimony, I came from a place of not knowing what God's love really felt like, and when I finally experienced it for the first time, it was something that overwhelmed me, to the point of not being able to keep it in. This experience I had with Didi reformed my heart, or rather the direction my heart was taking. I had a desire to share God's love with people who, like me, didn't know His love. And God had opened my eyes to who these people were: the orphan and vulnerable child.

Working at Wesley Chapel, most of our students come from broken families. They do have some form of family in their life, whether it is a mother, an aunt, or cousins taking care of them. But coming from broken families, their needs are similar to the orphan. What they are lacking is similar. The level of love that God has for them has not always been conveyed to them accurately, if at all. This has reignited my heart for children, to show them God's love.

In my life, I've always felt like God called me to be a traveler. At YWAM, I got the overwhelming sense that He was just saying "Paul" over my life. That I would go to many different places, sharing His love wherever I could. Recently, a friend contacted me about a possible opening at a Christian non-profit we both were familiar with, called Back2Back ministries.

Back2Back ministries is an international non-profit dedicated to being a voice for orphans. They exist to love and care for the orphans and vulnerable children, by meeting their spiritual, physical, emotional, educational, and social needs to help them overcome their life circumstances and break out of the cycle of generational poverty.

When I found out they were looking for a videographer, a lot of things clicked. Here was an organization that was dedicated to serving children and showing them God's love. Check. They were also international, which meant travel. Check. And they needed somebody with video expertise to help spread their vision, and spread these children's stories. Check. All of this felt perfectly in line with what God had been calling me to all along, whether I had realized it or not.

So I leapt.

Currently, I'm in the process of fundraising my salary, so I can officially join Back2Back ministries. I will be part of their marketing team, as the Video Media Coordinator, joining together with others to visually tell the stories of these children, and help spread awareness of their situation to people all over the world, while simultaneous communicating to the children that their story matters, and people all over the world truly care about them. 

Over the next few months, I will be raising financial support for my salary so that I can commit full time to ministering to these children. It's going to be a tough few months, but I am believing that God will provide. Romans 8:32 says "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all -- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"

The need is great, but I believe these children are worth it, and I strongly believe that God is calling me into his kingdom work. My hope is to find people along the way who can join me in this journey, join me in fulfilling their part in the great commission, so that together years from now, we can look back together at all the children's lives we impacted, just by being willing to follow God's leading.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and God bless.

Mikeyy