answering the call

God has been after me for a long time, constantly nudging - but I was scared. He has been pointing me towards service, but that doesn't exactly fit into my plans of becoming a teacher and coach. So I asked, "God - I feel you, but I need you to point me in the right direction". Its amazing how God answers prayer. I began looking into overseas missions, because I love to travel and I felt that traveling and doing God's work seemed like a pretty good combo to me - but as usual, he had different plans.
There was a day on campus at Bluffton when many different service organizations came to recruit for both short and long term missions and service opportunities - and I was there to gather as much info as I could and decide which organization was the best for me. While I was there, I ran into some representatives from an organization called Covenant House. They talked to me about the mission of their organization - a commitment to serve children of the street and to safeguard all children. Now this seemed like an honorable mission, but it obviously wasn't for me because I wanted to go overseas - the program they were recruiting for only exists in the states. So I gladly accepted their brochures, and went on my way to more interesting and exciting organizations.
For the next month I could not get covenant house off of my mind. The nudging from God seemed to turn into a deliberate shove. I began looking into Covenant House more and more, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is what God wanted me to do - But for how long? A full year of service, perhaps? At about this same time, I began interviewing for teaching jobs. Again, I asked God to lead me - after my very first interview, I was offered a job at Ontario Middle School to teach exactly the subject areas that I had hoped for - God answers prayer.
So I will serve with Covenant House for the rest of my summer - they offer 3 month volunteer opportunities, and accepted me into the program even though I can only serve for 2 months before my job at Ontario begins. I will find where I will actually be serving soon - I could be in New York City, Atlantic City New Jersey, or Fort Lauderdale Florida.
If anyone wants to know more about Covenant House, their website is http://www.covenanthouse.org/ and the website for the actual volunteer program I am involved with is http://www.covenanthouse.org/inv_faithcommunity.html