“In the beginning, God created the
heavens and the earth.” Thousands of years later, He created me. I was
born on the 5th of April in 1991 to Susan and Eric Perla. I grew up
lookin’ good on the outside, doin’ the whole church thing. I was in Sunday
school every week, accepted Jesus Christ into my heart at age 11, had
“Bible studies” with the neighbor kids and baptized my dog. I had
plenty of friends, had my future planned out and life was good. Then one day
God decided it was time to start telling me His plans for my life and ruined
everything.
It all started about six years ago when the
leader of my school’s Christian club gave me a book on John Wesley, a
missionary and founder of the United Methodist Church. I read about his life
and all of the things he did and thought it would be pretty cool to be a
missionary. But the thoughts were short lived and before long I was back to my
dreams of becoming a rancher and owning tons of cattle on thousands of acres. I
went on a couple mission trips in junior high but it wasn’t until the summer of
2006 that God really smacked me with His plans. I was on a mission trip to the
Gulf Coast of Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina with Adventures in Missions.
We did prayer walks, door to door evangelism and worked at soup kitchens and
clothing donation centers. I fell in love with the mission field. One night
after worship one of my leaders, Gina, prayed over me and after she was done
leaned over and said, “When you become a missionary, I’m going to work for
you.” She said it with such great confidence. She was positive that I was
going to be a missionary. God spoke through her that night and I will never
forget those words.
After that trip to Mississippi I was pumped. I was positive that I was going to
be a missionary and nothing was going to change my mind, well, at least for a
few months. Soon, I got distracted and strayed away from God and the dream of
being a rancher came in to rule my life once again. One night, as I was lying in
bed thinking about what my ranch house would look like, a random thought popped
into my head, “I wonder what God wants me to do with my future.”
Immediately I thought of the verse 1Timothy 4:13. I had never read the verse
before and, honestly, didn’t even know if the verse existed. I decided to open
up the Bible and look it up to satisfy my curiosity. The verse read,
“Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to
preaching and to teaching.” I couldn’t breath. As fast as I could I read the
whole paragraph and was completely amazed at the words I would soon be living
my life by. “Command and teach these things.
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for
the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I
come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to
teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic
message when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Be diligent in these
matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you
will save both yourself and your hearers.”
A few months later I was boarding a plane to Iquitos, Peru in the Amazon Jungle
for a month long mission trip with AIM. The following year I went on another
Ambassador trip to the Philippines followed by the Novas Project to Nicaragua
in 2009. I can’t wait to be apart of
this team to go to the Philippines and hopefully there will be many adventures
to come. This is my life mixed with how I was called to the field and may
“the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen”
