Emma Evans left Hickory on a missionary journey to the Philippines on Aug. 28. Evans, 18, will return home in about 11 months, she said.
Emma Evans reads a passage from her Bible while sitting in a pew at First Baptist Church in Hickory. Evans said she gave her life to God at a youth conference in 2019. “The other day, my friend said that I was most likely to be a soccer mom, but I think that God’s calling for me is to be a missionary,” Evans said as she read a passage from her journal.
“I was just reading through it, and that was just funny, I can’t believe that, since I was 13 years old, I was just like, ‘This is what I want to do.’” Evans was homeschooled. She graduated from high school and received her associate degree from Caldwell Community College earlier this year, she said.
Evans is the first member of First Baptist Church of Hickory to do missionary work internationally in more than 100 years, she said. First Baptist Church is located at 339 Second Ave. NW.
Evans raised $12,000 for the trip. Evans discussed her religious path and hopes for the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2019 when I was 13, I went to a conference in Birmingham, Alabama, called the Motion Student Conference. It’s like a youth conference. On the last night during one of the sessions, I gave my life to Jesus.
It was a beautiful moment. I remember telling my youth leader after that, “Nothing else matters to me but Jesus. What can I pursue in the rest of my life where literally my job is Jesus?” And she said, “Well, you could be a missionary.
” That’s when that idea kind of started. I’ve always been a writer. I’ve always loved journaling.
I found this scrapbook when I was going through some stuff. This was 2019 and it was a letter that I wrote called, “My Motion Letter,” about what I experienced. This is what it says: “Motion 2019 changed my life.
I was so nervous when I first decided to go, and I almost didn’t. The next days were amazing. God literally showed and told me that He was the only thing that should be at the top of my list.
“When I was 13, I loved horses. I was riding horses every single day, and I was like, ‘That’s what I want my life to be.’ I started thinking, ‘You know, maybe horses aren’t what God has planned for my life.
’ I always just immediately shoved the thought down. The main speaker (at the conference) said to everyone, ‘I used to be obsessed with horses, until I realized that my life was God, not horses or whatever dreams I had. It’s OK to dream and have passions, but nothing should be more important than God and your relationship with him.
’ “I just sat there in shock. We started to worship, and the song that played was, ‘Oh, Come to the Altar.’ The lines are about coming to God and giving your entire life to Him.
I started crying and looked up at the ceiling. With music playing, people singing, best friends hugging and everyone crying, I gave my life to Jesus. In that moment, I realized until that day, my life revolved around my goals and my plan.
But I finally understood that God was the only thing in my life. He had a perfect plan for my life. He was my life now.
” That was kind of the beginning of me realizing that I wanted to be a missionary. I’ve never been somebody to shove my faith or my beliefs down somebody’s throat. If they want to talk about God, great.
If they don’t, that’s fine as well. I will say that when you experience the Holy Spirit and when you finally realize the beautiful love that Jesus has for us, you just can’t turn back from that. You’re just like, “I don’t want my life to be anything else but this.
” Emma Evans holds trinkets given to her by a mentor, a friend and a coworker as encouragement for her trip. For the first two months that I’m there, I will be doing something called advanced operational training. I’ll be in the Philippines, in Manila, which is the capital of the Philippines.
During this training period, I’ll be serving with the local church there and doing outreaches and stuff with the community. We’ll also be going to different islands. Once I finish that training, I go on what they call deployments.
I’ll go to two other countries. You get to choose those countries once you finish the training. For example, say there’s an opportunity in Thailand for children’s ministry working in an orphanage or there’s an opportunity in Vietnam for working with women’s ministry.
Basically, you go where you feel God has gifted you the ability to do very well, or where he’s calling you to that. I’ll be in that first deployment, wherever I’ll be, for a month serving there, and then I come back to the Philippines for a couple of weeks over Christmas, and then I go on my second deployment. The second deployment is three months and then I come back to the Philippines for a couple weeks to debrief with my team before coming home.
I really do hope that I can go to Vietnam. I grew up eating Vietnamese food with my grandpa. He served in the Vietnam War, and he’s always told me so many amazing stories of that place and the beautiful culture there.
When I told him about this trip, he said, “Well, I really hope you can go into Vietnam.” I said, “Me too. That would be really cool.
” That’s just one place. I want to see the whole world. Oh, man, so many people have asked me this, and I don’t have an answer.
Around the end of 2022, or so, I had no idea this is what I was going to be doing at all. It’s hard to plan where your life is going to be in a year. I definitely have some ideas.
I would love to go to seminary for two years, get my degree in ministry and then become a full-time sponsored missionary. Truly, I really don’t want to do anything else but do ministry. I don’t really have any other passions or interests at this point in my life.
I would also love someday to be a wife and a mom. Sarah Johnson is the courts and breaking news reporter for the Hickory Daily Record. Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly! Reporter {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
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