There is one question that I absolutely hate and that is when people ask me what I want to be when I grow up. I know I’m mature but people expect me to have a 5 year plan of my life written out; I’m only 17! People always try to define you by what you do thus I now answer the question in the same way that Shane Claiborne did, “I’m not too concerned with what I’m going to do. I’m more interested in who I am becoming. I want to be a lover of God and people.”
I’m sure you never heard that goal before but just think of the possibilities! It’s great when a person creates a goal to better him/herself but sometimes it can get to a point where your goal is no longer out of self improvement but is instead rooted in vanity. If I wanted to I could go to med school or get a business degree and work a corporate job. Both jobs I would be almost guaranteed to make enough money to live a great life, buy a big house, and save up for a happily ever after in retirement. This is not what I want to do. Instead I choose to do what God calls me to do; that is to love Him and love others. If God calls me to be a doctor, then I will do it but right now I feel that I am being called to do missions for a year after high school before hitting the books, once again, at a university.
I guess there are two main things that I need to do before heading off to Youth With A Mission (aka YWAM) to spend 6 months studying the Bible and sharing the love of Jesus. The first is that I need to finish high school but not only will I finish high school, I will also be finishing my first year of college by way of PSEO. PSEO, also known as post secondary education option, allows me to take classes at a university or college and receive both credit for my required high school classes as well as my general education in college. Next year, I am planning to attend North Central University full time thus saving me a couple thousands of dollars in college debt and also placing me one year ahead so that after my gap year I can jump back in at the same time as everyone else.
The other big thing I need to do before my gap year is fundraise. With YWAM I spend the first 3 months in what they call a DTS, discipleship training school, and then the next 3 months in missions. The money I need to fundraise pays for travel fees, room, board, food, materials, donations, and whatever else the program needs to pay for for someone to come there. In order to get the money that I need I will find the base that I plan to go to and see how much I need to fundraise. I will write letters asking for donations and will give up Christmas and birthday presents in order to have more money to go for my trip. I will probably also have to work some that way I can buy things for my friends and family, home in Minneapolis, to remind them that I still love them.
In the 17 years of my lifetime, I have always been blessed to have a continuous chain of positive people in my life to support me in my decisions and to keep me going in the right direction. One person who helped me in my biggest 180 degree turns was Heidi Govednik, our renter and hairdresser who later became my mentor and the closest person I have to being an older sister. She came in my life at the most perfect of timing and caught me as I was falling into the pit of an eating disorder. I literally I have no idea where I would be in my life today if God had not sent her my way.
The next great influence happened as I was going into my freshman year of high school. The house behind us, which had previously been an empty lot, had a bunch of new guys move into it. These young adults were fresh out of Bethel University and full of energy to impact and love the people around them that God has placed in their lives. I was one of those people. These men and along with the people who came to their Sunday night church have have shown me what it really looks like to live out a Christian faith in the way it was intended to be lived.
The last person who brought me to where I am now and this goal is actually one of the guys-from-the-house-behind-me’s sister, Emily. Emily has gone through a lot and is someone that I really look up to. Last year, Emily decided to do YWAM after high school and absolutely loved the experience. She opened up the idea of taking a year off to serve and learn more about God to me. Choosing to do YWAM also has shown me how great it will be to go into college having experienced more of the world and to also, hopefully, know a little more the direction in which God is pointing me to.
We live in a world where people focus a lot on themselves. We make these 5 year plans that people expect from us to show that we are in control, our life is stable, everything is good and we become independent just like how our world wants us. I feel that this is why so many Christians in this world are lukewarm and look and act just like everyone else in society. They act like their lives are perfect because they have everything they need and more.
This pressure is what holds many christians back from doing the will of God. They say that they are comfortable with the way their lives are and they don’t want it to change so instead they silently say, “We’re good God. We don’t need you now.” I don’t want to tell God that my life is completely together, yet I do it daily simply by waking up in my warm bed and going downstairs for a bowl of cereal. I want to learn what it’s like to depend on him every single day, because I can’t take every day for granted. I want to learn more about the people that are forgotten about and outcast, to build relationships with them and be their friend because life isn’t about being comfy in my own private box. I was created to love God and that’s what I’m going to do.
As a summary, you can conclude this is not your normal paper. I am also not your normal high schooler. I’m Morgan Jensen, teen just doing what God asks me to do. There is no way to say what my life will be like or how I, as a person, will dramatically change after my year off. I have no idea what will happen yet I know that God will. They call this faith but also I think it is one of those english words where the word itself doesn’t do itself justice. It’s a feeling that I can’t use language to describe how it affects my way of thinking but it’s with this faith that I trust that whatever happens after that year to the Morgan in the first paragraph will only be better shaped and molded into the person God is creating me to be.
