Remember.

For the past 12 months, I have been processing various, big changes in my life. Apparently those happen when you start college. I knew at the beginning of last summer that the Lord was stirring something in my heart, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. I thought maybe I was just excited to be done with high school and starting college, or I was excited to be volunteering at RBC, but I knew that whatever it was, it was going to be big.

Exactly one year ago today I embarked on the single greatest journey of my short life. I had my suitcase packed and weighed, my flight schedule memorized, and had said all of my goodbyes. The only thing left was for me to be radically changed by the week I was going to experience.

Not many people are very impressed when you tell them you are taking a mission trip to Naples, Italy. Tell them you're going to Africa or China or El Salvador, and they'll give you money like it grows on trees, because these places are famous for being poverty-stricken and in need of Jesus. All of this is very true, and there are so many people who are called to serve in these places and are more than willing to go. However, what most people fail to realize is that people who drive luxury cars need Jesus just as much as someone who lives in a dump. Oftentimes there is more of a barrier in countries that are well off, because the very idea of Christianity is giving up your life to follow Christ. This is a difficult concept to grasp for those who are materially wealthy.

Throughout my week in Naples, I did not feed hungry children, I did not weep with widows, and I did not build houses for the homeless.

What I did, was encounter was a city full of hearts hardened towards the Gospel, a city where churches lock their doors because no one attends anymore, a city where a religious tradition takes precedence over a relationship with God. Naples is a spiritually stale city that is forgotten by the majority of the Church, because people are not suffering physically or financially.

Missionary work there is hard. Few people are in a desperate enough place to renounce the family religion and accept Christianity. You don't see immediate results because you spend long periods of time building relationships and planting seeds. Even in the short week that I was there, I experienced the frustration of not seeing your work come to fruition immediately.

I also experienced how completely wonderful the people of Naples are, and how much they love life and love one another. They take life at a totally different pace, and with a totally different attitude. These people, who don't know the love of Jesus, are living daily with a better attitude than me, someone who has the hope and love of Christ inside of her. It makes me so excited to think about what would happened if revival were to break out in Naples. If people can love that big while they're lost, imagine how big they could love if they knew Jesus.

I am still processing the impact that Naples had on my heart and on my plans for the future. That trip completely changed my outlook on foreign missions and dug up a desire in my heart to be a part of ministering to the overlooked and forgotten.

To say that what the Lord started in my heart last year in Naples was big would be a gross understatement. I still don't think I have completely grasped just how much He has been working in me and in the city of Naples.

Thanks for reading a little bit of what has been happening in my life in the past year.

Ciao!