Sydni's Part

I believe everyone has a holy discontent - a personal struggle with an object, a person or an idea, something that God has put on your heart. Your discontent becomes your discomfort until it becomes your disbelief at the never-ending goodness of God. This is what happened to me. This is my holy discontent.

Last summer I had the amazing privilege of going to two Fuge summer camps. One was a work camp and the other was a personal camp. It was on these trips that I was introduced to the Roma, a people group in Eastern Europe that are disenfranchised and discriminated against. I came back from the first camp with a fire for Jesus you can only get after being on a mission trip surrounded by Him, but also with a passion. I came back with a passion for a people group I never knew existed before that week. I had a fire, a passion, a holy discontent; and I wanted to go. It has taken a lot for me to give myself up completely to God; to believe that if He wants me to be there he will get me there, regardless of the questions. Questions like how, when, and what. How would I get to these people? How would I pay for it? When would I go?When would I be old enough? And what?! What was God doing? Was He really calling me to go across an ocean to work with people I had never even heard of before that summer? Was I going to let Him work through me and in me? My answer: Yes.

My convictions got stronger and stronger. I had to go. I had to reach the Roma somehow. I didn’t know how I would get there, if I would be going alone or with another church. My home church didn’t have any plans to go to Poland, the only place I knew the Roma lived, so I went off in search of finding another team, another church or group going to Poland so I could go with them. There were a few groups but nothing really seemed to be working out. I was starting to lose hope. That was when Jackie Heberle, a youth leader at my home church, was asked by World Changers International and Fuge to head up a mission project in Skopje, Macedonia:  to work with the Roma. I have never felt God speak to me more than the day I found out that PCC, my home church, was going on their first youth international trip. It was as if He was saying to me, “You trusted me, so I did my part - now do yours.”