"Why am I here?": A Review of My Call After a Half-Year in Asia

“Why I am here” has routinely become the thesis for many of my prayers as of late. The answer always comes, in a very familiar voice heard in the depths of my heart that says, “Because this is where I want you.” “Thanks,” I sometimes sarcastically think to myself, “got any details?”

About 10 years ago, at Circleville Nazarene, listening to a visiting missionary speak, I felt the distinctive tug at my heart to “become a missionary.” “What I stereotype,” I thought to myself, “I’m just being excitable,” and I eventually dismissed it as a serious thought, as my teen years progressed.

Four years later, on the return trip from a mission’s trip to the Bahamas, the familiar tug returned—this time the tug was more definite, yet a bit broader. “I feel called into full-time ministry” was my confession as our group prayed that night.

Two years later as I enrolled as Religion Major at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, the tug was ever-present, yet ever-ambiguous. “Where on earth do you want me, Lord?” I would pray. And the familiar voice within my heart would, with beautiful ambiguity, retort: “Here.” “But what about the details?!” I would think to myself.

Time progressed and I began to take an interest (and eventually a second major) in philosophy, focusing in world religions. As the Lord, unexpectedly, yet not-surprisingly lead me into 2 and a half years in an All-Korean Church, 3 years with a Korean/Kazakhstani roommate, and a long internship in the socially and politically depressed former-soviet union, the Lord’s original call to that 14 year-old boy, quickly returned, only this time it was much harder to deny.

Throughout the rest of my time at MVNU, my love for teaching, explaining concepts and communication began to develop as I tutored and taught as a teachers assistant, and Mentor on campus. As I approached the end of my undergraduate road, I felt a bit like Robert Frost’s character from The Road Not Taken, who stands at the fork of “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” I felt like Neo, in The Matrix, when he is offered two pills: the blue one—to take him back to everything he knows and is familiar with, or the red one—which will lead him down a path full of questions and even danger, yet a path that will allow him to embrace what he knows, deep down, he was created for. So, with an ounce of inhibition I accepted the red pill, which I knew would inevitably lead me to Asia. I accepted it and even left off my usual request for details—upon one condition…that the Lord pave the way.

And the Lord paved the way. I was asked, out of the blue to take a position teaching English to Korean students over the Internet for a few hours each week, a job which would allow me to be mobile (especially in Asia) and offer me some small financial support, while on the other side of the world. Beyond this, I would soon find out that this job had its base in Manila, Philippines—only a few miles from the Seminary where I would attend school—of all the places in the world, it was in Manila! Plans fell into place, sometimes miraculously, and within a short while I found myself on a plane headed to Asia.

I came here with about $2,000 in my Savings and a job that I hoped would help me along. However, material security like that is never good for building faith, however, it was needed to get me to cross the Pacific to Asia. Within a few months, as Student Visa fees, documentation fees, enrollment fees, international fees, and a seeming thousands more came at me, I soon found that the money that I had saved was grossly insufficient. As for my job on the internet, my hours were soon cut in half, giving me just enough money to buy food and pay for rent, but no where near enough to pay for tuition. So the prayer continues, “God, Why am I here?” And the response quietly follows, “because this is where I want you.”

Though the scenery has changed, the country has changed, and I have certainly changed, the story has remained the same. Through uncertainty, God wants me here. Manila? Yes. Seminary? Also, Yes. But most importantly, as the case has been from the beginning of the story, he wants me in a place where I have nothing to rely on but him and his provision, from wherever that provision may come. And it is somewhere in that beautiful ambiguity that faith is found and understood. Going back to the 14 year-old boy sitting in a missions service… little did I know where that little tug would bring me, little did I know where I would be only 10 years later—in a place where there is so much work to be done, so many needs to be met, and an endless task at hand.

So, “where am I?”
I am, “here,” right where I need to be
…and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

- Jarrett