God doesn’t change his mind and he’s never wrong. God doesn’t change his mind and he’s never wrong. God doesn’t change his mind and he’s never wrong…

    That’s what I hear in the back of my mind every time I read Romans 11:29. In my Bible, it reads, “God never changes his mind about the people he calls and the things he gives them.” It’s highlighted, and right next to it sits the first time I really found and truly considered it: 9/13/06. I wrote the date because I somehow inherently knew that it was meant for me. For a couple years before that I had felt a call to do missions work, but somehow, I always managed to shrug it off. Of course, it’s just my imagination…I’m too young… I’m not even done with school yet…I still don’t know exactly how I rationalized it, but I eluded it.

Then, in August, upon going to Mexico to study the language, I found myself in the corridors of the poorest school I have ever seen. Kids ran around in clothes three sizes too big and had cheeto crumbs in the corners of their mouths because it was all they had for lunch. The paint in the building was once vibrant, but now seemed worn out and peeled off the wall in great sheets, revealing grey cement underneath. Text books like we have in the United States were non-existent, and even toilet paper was scarce. The one bathroom was unspeakably dirty from 150 kids worth of use. Garbage and abandoned debris lay wherever flat ground permitted it to do so.
Then, I heard it again, in the back of my head, “Stay”.
            “What? You want me to stay?”
            “Yes, stay. Stay here”.
            “What can I do?”
            “Whatever you can”.
            “Okay, I’ll teach. Yeah, I’ll stay…”
And that is when it all started…That’s when I started listening….

    My name is Jessica Goddard and I am currently a student at Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan. I am studying communications, Spanish, and religion in the hopes of one day making missions my career. While in Mexico, I was a volunteer teacher for a school called El Rincon de Maria. The kids were ages three to seven and the school was entirely funded by monies paid by parents.

    The school is located in a barrio, or a very poor area. There is no running water or legal electricity in most of the squatter settlement, and it’s a place that most in the United States only see once in a while and don’t even believe really exists. Kids eat chips and drink Coca-Cola. They have no teeth and holey clothes. Houses are constructed from scrap metal and electric-blue tarps. Streets hardly exist, and if they do, they’re not what we consider streets; they’re pathways worn down into the dirt from years of use.

    Upon teaching and trying to think of ways to help the school when I returned to the states, I had my big idea. I would go around and present, independently, to raise money for the school and kids. I wanted to help start things like community programs, PURCHASE school supplies, educational resources, and whatever else they needed available. And that’s when I decided to listen…And that’s what I’m still trying to do....

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