Short version of the back story- I'd wanted to be a nanny since I was 13. I loved working with kids, and I thought being a nanny would be an amazing way to do that. I went to school, got certified, got my "dream job" which turned out to be a nightmare, quit that, and moved back in with my mom feeling defeated.
I spent a year working at whatever I could find, babysitting and temp work mostly. Depressed, not doing what I felt like I was meant to do.
One Saturday night in the middle of November I was praying, begging God for guidance, what did he want me to do? I didn't want to be where I was, I wanted to serve him, to follow his path. As I was praying, crying, pleading I heard "Get your passport." I got out my prayer journal and wrote "I will get my passport on Monday" and went to sleep.
Of course, I hadn't had a ton of work, the little boy I had been caring for had just started daycare and so I wasn't needed as much anymore and I had an insurance payment coming up. There was no way I could afford a passport. It would be irresponsible to get it when I had other bills. So by the time the Post Office opened on Monday I had completely talked myself out of it.
A week went by, I'd pretty much written it off. Sunday I went to church, and surprise surprise, we had a guest missionary speaker, his message was on listening to the call. I felt like God was smacking me upside the head. When I spoke with the missionary after the service, he gave me his card and the phone number of the Mission Board and told me "you don't believe in the Great Commission if you don't have your passport."
On Monday I applied for my passport and called the mission board. I was pretty discouraged by what I was told, missionaries have to have been to college, or marry someone who went to college. I've never felt like college was for me and there's no way I'm marrying anyone based on their education. So however I was to use my passport, it wasn't as a missionary, or at least not through the mission board.
Wednesday I went in to see if I could speak with my pastor. He wasn't in the office, but his wife was, so I asked if I could speak with her instead. I told her about how I'd been told to get my passport, how I'd spoken to the mission board, and so on. She told me about one of her daughters friends who was serving in Africa as a nanny for a missionary couple. As it happens the friend was coming back the next week, and maybe the family would need another nanny to replace her.
I was so excited, it seemed so perfect. They got the families email address to me, I sent them an email, and never heard back. Checked that I had the right email address, checked that they knew I was going to be in contact, sent another email, and... nothing.
So I went online, googled "missionary nannies" and found Mission Nannys.
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