Me, A Missionary?

by Mary Boddy

Mama and Me on her 92nd birthday.
Below: enjoying my grandkids

My earliest memories are of sitting on the couch cuddled up to my mother as she read missionary stories to me. I believe those were the ONLY storybooks she read. (I’m serious!) Her deepest desire was for me to grow up and actually BE a missionary! In my young mind, missionaries' lives were full of dangerous rivers with crocodiles, dark jungles, swords, wild cats, witch doctors, strangely clad natives, and threats of cannibals. I loved these exciting stories, but had absolutely NO desire to actually BE a missionary myself. I preferred living vicariously through the books from the comfort and safety of my couch.

But, like so many other things I never saw myself doing, here I am going to AFRICA! I keep trying to write my own story, but God takes the pen and has a different plan. I feel incredulous, unqualified, and nervous, (like at the beginning of every story) and yet, at some point I quit saying, “Really God?! Me? Are you serious?” I have learned that God writes my story much better than I can and by the end of each chapter I would not change a single paragraph. HE is amazing, faithful, exciting, and all sufficient; if I had not allowed HIM to write my story I would never have learned that I can do anything that HE calls and enables me to do.

God started a new chapter in my life a little over a year ago when He moved my husband and me to California from Georgia; far from all that was familiar, comfortable and loved. God opened the door for me to be trained as an advocate for survivors of domestic abuse. He has given me a passion for helping women suffering from abuse and the ability in me to serve those He places before me. Now He is asking me to go to Zambia to share what HE has been teaching me about abuse so that His children there (my extended “family”) will be safer.

My dear, missionary minded mother is now 92 and is eager for me to RETURN from Zambia and sit safely on the couch next to her. Hahaha! How the tables have turned!!