This is my friend, Amanda.
I started to say that I've known her since she was small, but she is still "fairy" sized (and I am so envious, which is a sin. Oh good, we're starting the day off well, aren't we?)
Anyhow, as I started to say, before I was so rudely distracted by myself, Amanda is currently in Japan serving as a summer missionary. If you find yourself with a few moments on your hands throughout the summer, would you mind praying for her? She has a heart for the lost in Japan and plans to spend her life serving there. This is just a taste of the future for her.
(Also, you could pray for her mom too. It's both hard and a blessing when a child chooses a life of service overseas. And Helen (Amanda's mom) not only has a daughter in Japan, but her youngest is graduating from high school today and heading off to Africa in a few weeks. And we aren't even mentioning that she is talking about a life over there. One hurdle at a time.)
Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
1 Corinthians 9:19-23
