He Has Set His Affection On Us

In the midst of my scheming about the future, I visited a few colleges. The college that seemed to be a perfect fit was called Toccoa Falls in Georgia. I visited the campus the fall of my senior year and met with the head professor of the Communications department. I told him about the plan - how I wanted to do radio broadcasting in a Spanish speaking country. He encouraged me to do some type of internship before starting at the college. 

In the back of my mind, I was thinking of WJTL, a Christian radio station located near my home. At the time there was a guy who used to attend my church and was a family friend that worked there. Just the “in” I needed.

I came home and told my youth pastor what I was hoping to do and he got me connected with the right people. 

One morning in January, I sat before Fred McNaughton and Chris Strayer and interviewed for becoming an intern at WJTL. I guess I passed the test because they offered me an internship where I was on the morning show twice a week and helped out in the office afterwards. 

From January to June of 2005, I was an intern at WJTL and loved it. The staff was great and I loved hanging out with Fred and Lisa on Monday and Wednesday mornings. 

In the meantime I was still falling in love with Ethiopia. Not only did I write my senior research paper about the church in Ethiopia, but I also centered lots of other projects around East Africa. So much so, that by the end of the class I was known as the Africa girl. 

The only problem was that it was less than a week till I graduated high school and I still had yet to hear back from the YWAM school I applied to. There was this little thing in the back of my mind that would wonder what if this didn’t work out? I had put all of my eggs in the proverbial basket. And by this time, the thought of college repulsed me. I did well in school, but the idea of four more years of it felt like death. I literally had no plan B. No other ideas. 

Then it happened. One email. It simply said, 

We are sorry, but unfortunately we will not be accepting international students. 

I read that email over and over again. 

My fear came true. The last six months - all of this preparing and anticipation came to nothing.

I was so sure I had heard the Lord. 

The only thought I could think was,

Now what?

Driving through Louisiana today, there was a sign for a “gentleman’s” club located in a town called Sulphur. Two very ironic things in one billboard. 

It’s been a weird birthday. Tomorrow my sister and I start on our first cross country road trip so today has been spent mostly packing and unpacking and then repacking with less stuff. I completely underestimated the difficulty of packing for six months. 

This morning my church had a commissioning prayer for me. Time and time again I am overwhelmed by the mass amounts of people that are lifting me up in prayer, supporting me and standing with me. Afterwards I gave more hugs than I can remember and shed lots and lots of tears. When you have that type of support system it is extremely hard to say goodbye, especially for me. 

At the beginning of this year, I was a bit confused. Last year was amazing - I got to do so many wonderful things but there was still this thing inside me that wasn’t quite right. A few days in some sunshine and lots of prayer turned the direction of my life 180 degrees. At the end of February, I knew the Lord was inviting me to start on a journey that would fill that thing I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He created me and he knows my strengths, weaknesses and needs. 

Much of year 23 was filled with preparation and transition and bittersweet farewells. I stepped away from a job of over 5 years that I loved. I’m walking away for a time from my family and friends. All in pursuit of this man named Jesus. He is worth all of my time, love and life. 

It seems like year 23 has been setting me up for year 24.

Can’t wait to tell you all about it. 

I was standing on a roof in Chapala, Mexico during the summer of 2004. I was there on a missions trip with my youth group. At 17 years old I had experienced more than most people get to experience in a lifetime. That’s something I hope to never take for granted. 

I was standing on a roof overlooking the city of Chapala worshipping and praying. In that moment, I felt the Lord ask a simple request. Ashlea, take this next year off. 

Really? Are you sure? I mean, God, I’ve got this plan and it involves me getting a pricey education and then serving you. Are you sure you want me to put that on hold? 

But there was peace in that moment and I knew that I could trust Him. I’d take a year off and spend it on Him and then go back to the plan. 

I came home from Mexico and still visited collages and schemed away with what life would look like a year after I would graduate. I figured that during the year in between I would participate in some type of missions, most likely with the organization, Youth With A Mission. 

During my senior year of high school, it was mandatory to write a senior paper. A seven to ten page paper on whatever topic you could write about for that long. I still remember sitting in the library of my high school trying to think of anything I could blab about for that long. Then a thought rushed through my brain…

Ethiopia has the fastest growing Mennonite church. 

Hm. That’s interesting. I wonder why that is… Hey, I bet that would be a great topic to write a seven page paper on. That was it. I would write my senior paper on the church in Ethiopia. 

Little did I know that over the course of the next few months studying and researching this country, I would fall in love with it. The church had faced persecution when it was under Communist rule but when that party was overthrown the church emerged victorious - with more members than it had prior to the Communist era. This fascinated me. I loved reading about the Church and enjoyed conversations with a couple from my church who had spent twenty plus years as missionaries in Ethiopia. A wealth of information was at my fingertips and I was eating it up. 

With this new found love, I thought what better place to do missions than Ethiopia! I checked out what YWAM bases were in Ethiopia and it turned out they had just started a new school whose focus was on tribal missions. I would spend time in Ethiopia receiving training and then for two and a half months I would travel from Ethiopia to Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia ministering to different tribes. 

That might sound insane to some people, but it only filled me with excitement. I think the Lord has blessed me with a certain naivety.

Finally, the plan was coming together and I was excited! Youth With A Mission in Ethiopia ministering to different tribes in Eastern Africa. 

Sounds perfect. Or at least I thought.

Radio Broadcasting?

Yeah, I’m not sure where that came from either. I can only assume it came from my love of music, talking and wearing jeans and hoodies on a regular basis. 

I was home from Venezuela and in two months starting high school. I knew that some things had to change because I was having a hard time reconciling my pre-Venezuelan life with the post-Venezuelan me. However when you’re 14, you want people to like you, especially before you enter high school. I still grieve the loss of some of the friendships I had, however I do not regret what I gained spiritually. 

My spiritual life grew a ton in my four years of high school. I was apart of an incredible youth group. I had leaders who challenged me and a church that supported the youth group and gave us opportunities to experience Christ outside the four walls of church. A best friend who met me before school to study Scripture, who took me on her family’s vacation and taught me the genealogy of Abraham and a love for Bible quizzing, who took me to mission conferences, who invited me to the Bible study she led and who let me practically live at her house. 

It’s hard to put it into words, but there was an immense amount of grace on my life during high school to encounter the Lord and to grow in my faith. Like a sponge, I just soaked up everything - any type of teaching, conference or book. Because of this, it’s led me to be a firm believer in this: if we turn towards God and acknowledge all of the lesser things that have kept us from Him and then invite Him in, He’ll come. He’ll come and He will bring love and mercy and grace in quantities we can’t comprehend. We just need to ask. He is a gentleman. He stands at the door and knocks. We need only to open it. 

Though my spiritual life had taken a drastic turn, most everything else was still the same. I was still a ridiculous overachiever. I honestly believe I was in 90% of the clubs my school offered at some point. Everything from FFA to class president. Beside my name in the year book it seriously could have said: overachiever. The plan was still the same. Get into a private Christian collage and major in Communications with a minor in Radio Broadcasting. 

But then, this trip happened…

(technically this story should start in the year 1986, but for your sake and mine we’re going to skip a few and start in the year 2001)

My ambition at the age of 14 was to become the next Katie Couric. Why? I can only assume that I loved the idea of being famous and interviewing people and feeling important. I can assume that because unfortunately I still desire some of those things. I envisioned myself going to a private Christian college and could see all of the frivolity I would most likely partake in.

10 days changed most of that.

In June of 2001, my parents let all 14 years of my wisdom and knowledge hop on a plane and head south to Venezuela. 

Prior to the trip I was awful. Thinking back I wouldn’t have even been my own friend. A deep concern for my image and status enabled me to be down right mean. But glossed over with a smile. Still mean though. However, God in his infinite wisdom had placed a friend in my life and orchestrated a whole slew of situations that led me to sitting on a plane headed to a third world country. 

Over the course of the week that I was there, night after night I would end up in tears. Rediscovering, experiencing and believing for the first time that God hears me, and that I hear him. That He cares for me. That He sees all of my hurt and disappointment and desires to comfort me. For the first time Scripture came alive to me and I could see God answering my prayers through them.

I can still see myself sitting outside of the hotel we stayed in asking Jesus to come into my heart (again), because I desperately needed it. 

And since then, everything has been different. 

To this day, my Dad pinpoints this trip as the turning point for me. Up until then he was “really worried” about me. His words - not mine. 

I came home not really desiring to be Katie Couric anymore. Somewhere in those 10 days grew a love for Latin America and the culture.

My ambition now?

Radio broadcasting as a means of sharing Christ in a Spanish speaking country.