A couple months ago, I wrote a blog about my next season. I tried to explain my heart behind wanting to move to Georgia at the end of January for a discipleship program called Center for Global Action (CGA). It was a difficult blog to write for a few reasons:
1) How do I tell people I’m leaving again?
2) How do I adequately explain in one blog all that I have learned about myself and how that’s leading me down this path
3) How do I explain a program that I don’t know much about but know God is leading me to?
4) How do I get excited about fundraising again?
These are just a few of the reasons/thoughts that made it difficult to write that blog. But I did it by God’s grace, though there are some things I’ve failed to mention.
The Race is often considered a “pressure cooker.” I have found this term to be excruciatingly true with regards to my heart. God constantly brings up spiritual bridges for me to cross or lessons for me to learn. Honestly, it happens all the time, which is such a beautiful thing. However, when it comes to explaining my next season, God constantly gives me more fuel to the CGA fire. It’s almost as if He has a notepad with Him in Heaven that has all the reasons I should go to CGA. One by one, He is showing me each line. So that being said, here is some follow up information:
A few weeks after I posted my “What’s Next For Me: CGA” blog, I met up with my squad for a few days of development and being filled up before going back out to the next country, Botswana, for month 10. As I laid in my tent (the first time I slept by myself in 10 months), I pondered the question I was asked earlier that day, “What are you here for?” I had been chewing on relatives of that question the entire Race, hoping to get an inkling of a realization of a passion. I had heard stories of a friend’s grandmother who lived her life as a missionary, and as I sat, listening, my heart was doing its weird leap thing that made me get excited, and nervous, and energetic like I could run a marathon, and creative, and on fire. I had forgotten about that feeling.
As wonderful as the Race was, sometimes the ministries I did throughout the months were not ministries I was passionate about. I did my best to give them my all, to love fully, and jump in headfirst, but often they weren’t things that gave me the feelings I mentioned above. So when I got the feeling again, it took me by surprise.
What was this thing I was feeling? I had experienced it before but had lost it somewhere.
Oh yeah! It’s what I feel EVERYTIME I hear about a missionary spreading the story and love of Jesus. I feel it when I experience people around me walking in new breakthroughs of their true identity in their Father. I feel it when God gives me words of Truth to speak into someone’s life and I get to walk alongside them as they wrestle with God.
I’ve finally accepted these as what they are: my passions.
Like I mentioned earlier, God gave me another line on the “Why go to CGA” list. He is going to use my time in that program as a tool to teach me more about these passions. Sure, I could go and just jump into some vocational ministry and use that as an experiment to try to figure out what He wants me to do with my passions. Or I could make a semi-permanent move to one of the ministries I had the opportunity of serving this year. I could move to my favorite USA city (Washington DC) and serve one of the ministries I’m enthusiastic about there. I could go to seminary for my M.Div or get my Master’s in Social Work or High School Guidance Counseling. I could work at a coffeehouse as a missionary barista.
But He doesn’t want me to do that (YET). He wants me to jump wholeheartedly into a new community in Georgia and be filled up again before I go out. CGA is a space to grow and learn more about the things God has stirred up in you on the Race and see more realistically how you can apply it to your life in America or in another country. This isn’t a break from the “real world” and it isn’t putting off getting a “real” job. It’s a type of training. A way of deepening the passions He has gifted me with while using others to sharpen me. It’s a way of continuing down this path of “Who are you really” and “What are you here for.” I have one life to live (like everyone else on this planet, as far as I know). I’m not going to waste it by settling for something that I am not passionate about. I want to “waste” my life completely for the cause of Jesus’ love and that takes a little pouring into.
I have to be in Gainesville, Georgia, on January 29 and have committed to one semester, which is 4 months. I am starting off in the Worship Track to continue the other part of my dream. After this first semester, I will decide if I am to stay at CGA or move on to something else. While at CGA, the mornings will be spent in a classroom setting with small and large group discussions, while the afternoons are full of hands-on learning through apprenticeships in my area of passion.
So, yeah, I’m going to Georgia. Yeah, I already have cowboy boots and enjoy country music. No, I cannot line dance yet. Yes, I am starting a list of all the places I want to explore. Yes, I will come back to STL and visit. Yes, I will visit the very first Chick Fil A and get a lemonade in your honor.
No, I am not yet fully funded for this dream to become a reality. Yes, I need your help. You, yes, YOU can help by prayerfully considering a financial contribution. I need your help to raise $3900 to make this next step in my journey a reality. Please consider it…
Here are the different ways you can financially partner with me:
- You can send a check by mail to P.O. Box 742570 Atlanta, GA 30374-2570. Be sure to write the check to Adventures in Missions and put “Taylor Duggan” in the memo line.
- You can make a credit card donation directly through my blog by clicking on the “Support Me” tab.
- You can set up an automatic monthly donation by clicking on the “Support Me” tab and scrolling to where you can choose “monthly recurring donation.”
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- You can choose how long you would like to donate by stating the date you would like to end donating.
- Please let me know when you do this so I can have an accurate picture of my fundraising goal achievement
- You can send money directly to my Paypal account. This WILL NOT be tax-deductible, but will help cover my cost of living while at CGA.
- You can email me, comment on this blog, Facebook message me, or click on the “Hit Me Up!” link on my blog and let me know if you would like to schedule a meeting (in person or Skype/Facetime) to hear more about the World Race, CGA, and how you can be part of this next season of my ministry.
Thank you to each of you for your support, encouragement, and prayers throughout my journey thus far. And thank you for your consideration in continuing it. Much love to each of you.
