The story so far.

Hi there. I'm Dana...Dane to my mom and my friends...The Dane Train to my boyfriend. Call me what you like. I think I like The Dane Train best. 

I recently graduated from Truman State University with a degree in public communication and minors in psychology and music. But please don't ask me what I'm going to do with my life. I don't know yet. Maybe I'll never know, and that's fine, as long as I find meaning and purpose in whatever I am doing in the present. For this summer that means I'm living in St. Louis and interning at a public relations agency in their internal communications department. You could say it's my first major step into the professional world. My reflections on it so far: growing up is strange.

But more important than my academic or career journey is my journey with the Lord. He's my reason for life and joy, the impetus for my every move and breath. I endeavor to live every day in obedience to my Savior, striving to be in tune with his will for my life. And for the upcoming season of my life, that obedience will mean THAILAND, where I'll be volunteering with a ministry from September 14, 2011 -February 14, 2012.

Sometime at the end of last summer I felt an undeniable call to serve in ministry overseas for some period of time after I graduated from Truman. Mind you, I had never imagined this for my life. I thought I'd graduate, find some job I loved, live on my own, be independent, etc. Riiiight. Throughout the past year I've truly learned the words of James 4:15 "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 

At about the point where I began to feel called to volunteer overseas, I had been learning about what this type of true obedience to the Lord looks like. I'd also been reading a lot about social justice and the gospel -- the gospel where we, as disciples of Jesus, radically love those that the world so often ignores, bringing the Kingdom of God to them. In all this, my eyes were being opened to the adverse conditions that so many people live in throughout the world. Children going hungry, women being abused, young girls being sex trafficked, people dying of preventable diseases. In the past year I've felt the urgency of showing these people the Kingdom of God -- a kingdom that they are invited to, just as much as we are.

So that brought me to somewhat of a dead end. "Okay, Lord, I know you've called me to do this. Now what?" Where was I supposed to go, what was I supposed to do? I began researching various missions organizations and decided to focus on YWAM's (Youth With a Mission) ministries. I started looking at the ministry sites they had in countries around the world, and for some reason, my heart began being drawn toward Southeast Asia. There was a specific group of ministries called the Project L.I.F.E. Foundation, which YWAM calls their mercy ministries, that I couldn't shake from my mind. So I applied to Project L.I.F.E. and they placed me with a ministry in Pattaya, Thailand called Pattaya Slum Ministries (PSM). PSM works in various capacities with people living in the slums of Pattaya (more on that later). For more info on Project L.I.F.E. and PSM, check out their Facebook page or their web site: http://www.ywamthai.org/mercy. 

That's probably enough information for now. Just wanted to give a brief background to those of you who I haven't gotten to share all of this with. I'll sign off with some verses that have reverberated through my mind throughout this whole process.

"Listen, my dear brother: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?" James 2:5

"Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked to clothe him, and to not turn away from your own flesh and blood?" Isaiah 58:6-7