Michi went to Mexico to make a difference. But she didn’t know how different her own life would be after only a few days there. 





Michi is a Japanese student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, USA. When a friend told her about a YWAM Madison trip to Mexico, she thought it would be a good way to practice her Spanish. Even though it was a mission trip and she didn’t believe in God, she loved kids and wanted to help them. 





“What will a non-Christian do on a mission trip?” she thought. 



Undaunted, Michi attended the prep meetings with the other students on the team. She sat quietly while they prayed and worshipped God. She didn’t get nervous until the team leaders talked about hearing God’s voice.

 

Michi wondered what she had gotten herself into. “I don’t know how to pray,” she thought, “let alone listen to God.”

The planning meetings began to get uncomfortable, but she kept going. She paid her trip fees and looked forward to doing something meaningful during her semester break. 

 The first days in Pachuca, Mexico were days of transition for the team, especially Michi. The team met with the other missionaries there, worshipping God and praying for the people of the city.

Strangely, Michi didn’t feel as uncomfortable as she feared. She sang along to the songs that were by now familiar to her. She even prayed, but not aloud.

 

But Michi still asked herself why she was there, why she had felt so strongly to join this team. Then the answer came quietly to her as if she had known it all along – she was there to get to know God.

 



“Why would God want anything to do with me?” Michi argued. “I didn’t grow up with Him. Can He hear me if I pray? Does He even want to talk to me?” 





Michi had grown up in Japan, where religion wasn’t even talked about. She knew no Christians and the Buddhists she knew weren’t very devoted. All she knew about God was what she heard and saw in her teammates.

 



Questions still swirled in her mind as she drifted to sleep that night. While she slept, she dreamed. In her dream, she lived in a poor town that teetered on the brink of starvation. An old man biked away from the town, pulling a cart that held all his belongings. If he sacrificed all he had, Michi and everyone else would be safe. Michi embraced him when he returned. “I love you, I love you,” she said.

 



Michi woke, confused, and the memory of the dream stayed with her the next morning. As she sat in the church service, listening to the music, a warm feeling enveloped her. Tears trickled down her cheeks and splashed onto her lap. Michi felt as though God Himself was hugging her.

 

“At that moment,” she said, “I realized how much I had missed God. I felt like I wanted to be with Him all my life and just didn’t know it. And it was like God told me the same thing—that He had missed me, that He wanted to be with me, that He finally got to spend time with me.”





Michi remembered her dream and realized the old man was like Jesus, who had given everything—even his life—to save her.

 
God’s love became real and from that point on, Michi had faith in God. “I realized that He does care about me. He does want to hear me,” she says.
Michi’s mission trip to Mexico turned out not to be just about helping children – it was about being one of God’s children.

“It was amazing!” says Michi. “Finding God was the best part of the trip for me,”

Find out more about YWAM Madison at : www.ywammadison.org