“And here we have Tara, our missionary. When she graduates high school, she’s going to travel the world evangelizing,” one of our church members said as she introduced me to a circle of my friends and family members. It was the graduation night for my high school class at church, where each person received a specialized affirmation and commission from the church leaders before we were sent out to various places. I could hear the pride in her voice, that here, one of our very own, would be traveling to share the gospel, and to Japan no less, which was one of the most unreached people groups on the globe.

I adopted her pride that night, but not the pride of a daughter who has the privilege of boasting in her Father’s glory. I had no idea in that moment how sweet the sting of being humbled before the Lord of Lords would be, and how living in a foreign country would guide me back to the feet of Jesus and reveal the love of God more than ever before.

The land of a thousand leaves

On August 25, 2022, I arrived in Tokyo, Japan, for my first MTW internship. My team was located in Chiba, which means “the land of a thousand leaves.” I was excited to be there while simultaneously scared out of my mind. It was my first time away from home, my first time working a full-time job, and my first time practicing intentional ministry. I was blissfully unaware of the depth of my own need for Christ to sustain me, and while I loved Jesus and cared deeply about sharing who He is, I had a shallow view of His love.

That didn’t stop the mission field from hitting me full force week one of living in Japan. Before I was over jetlag, I was teaching seven to eight classes a day for an international school, facilitating youth group, helping with a young adult ministry, and teaching language classes. And it was great! I felt totally in my element; this was my thing, and I felt right in the middle of God’s calling on my life. My home in Chiba was beautiful, my heart was full, and my love for God’s mission was growing every day.

I was blessed to teach some of the most amazing students. The class with whom I interacted the most was sixth grade, and they were patient with an inexperienced teacher like me. They taught me so much about myself, especially on the day when they had a billion things to say, none of which were related to the topics we were learning. We learned together: I how to be a teacher and they how to be students. I was also blessed to be surrounded by many godly women who poured into my life during that time.

I was not aware of it at the beginning of my internship, but Christ was using those women to deeply impact my faith journey. From going to the grocery store to hiking a mountain, to Japanese karaoke, they helped me become accustomed to the culture. They also showed me the beauty of consistent, intentional time with Jesus every day. I had never known people who were so excited to read their Bibles. One of my roommates would stay up until after midnight just to find the free time to dive into the Word of God.

I will be forever thankful for the friends and sisters in Christ I met in Japan. After 11 months of working hard and playing hard, my internship was over, and it was time to go home. My year in Chiba taught me how to be a teacher, a youth leader, and a good friend. I learned I love ministry and discovered some of the ways God has gifted me to do ministry. It wasn’t until I was home, however, that I learned perhaps the most meaningful lesson. Sitting in my comfortable home, in my comfortable house in the States, I realized just how crazy I was. I just spent a year in another country doing full-time ministry, me! I wasn’t qualified, I didn’t have any training, I messed up a lot, and I didn’t even know how much of an impact I had even made.

I realized that everything I had done in Japan was impossible by myself, and I had experienced the supernatural, loving, sustaining power of the Lord. Christ revealed the depth of my insufficiency and the magnitude of his glory and love. A song I had sung in church for years became clearer to me. It goes, “To this I hold, my hope is only Jesus. All the glory evermore to Him. When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat, ‘Yet not I, but through Christ in me.’”

Leaving Chiba was hard. I loved my life in Japan, my people, and my work. God has broken my heart for the nation of Japan, a place that is so desperately in need of the gospel, and I am blessed to carry that burden for the rest of my life. When I left, I knew my time doing ministry overseas wasn’t over. I didn’t know when or where, but I knew God would call me back to missions.

The land of a thousand hills 

It was not until July 1, 2025, that I was able to go on another mission trip with Mission to the World. When I found out I would have the opportunity to go on another, shorter trip, I was overjoyed. This time, I would be traveling to Rwanda, which is known as “the land of a thousand hills,” and a thousand hills it did have. If, when you picture Africa in your head, you picture flat, dry, and dusty, Rwanda is not the Africa you are thinking of. Rwanda, I discovered, is similar in some ways to Japan. Both cultures value cleanliness, family, and hard work. However, when I stepped off the plane onto the tarmac and watched everyone walk in different directions, none of them seeming to be the right one, I concluded that Rwanda and Japan would teach me completely different things.

This internship would stretch my ability to be comfortable with unknowns and ambiguity. Unlike my first internship, this one was more of a vision trip, meant to help interns experience missions in Africa and grapple with the idea of doing missions work long-term. Every day was different and offered different insights and challenges. One of my biggest blessings was my team. I lived, ate, and worked with seven other interns from across the United States, and we quickly became close friends.

A central theme of our ministry was evangelism, which we were encouraged to do often. Whether it be sharing our testimonies, encouraging local Christians, or sharing what we believe in church or on the street, our team leader was always getting us talking about Jesus. It was life-giving, terrifying, and exciting at the same time. All five weeks of my internship were filled with laughter, joy, sweet friendship, and impactful ministry.

Beneath that, however, in my heart was an unsettled, restless feeling that wouldn’t go away.

Week after week, I found myself at the end of the day, confronted with my heart, unsure of what to do. The issue I was noticing was sin; I was eerily aware of my own sin more than I had ever been before. Pride, greed, identity issues—it was uncomfortable to look at and wrestle with. Again, I started asking, Me on the mission field? Why, God?

That’s when the lessons I had learned in Japan flooded my heart, lessons the Lord had been carefully working out for years. In Japan, I learned theology, the head knowledge, of sanctification, and how in Christ I was a new creation, the old self was gone, and the new self was real.

In Rwanda, I knew that God’s love and grace for me was greater than I had ever imagined. That a sinner like me, someone who had been brutish and a beast toward God, was chosen, sought, found, and saved by Jesus. Without seeing the depth of sin, I could not begin to fathom the incomprehensible love of my Savior, who took my brokenness and made it His, took my filth and gave me clean clothes, took my orphanhood and made me a daughter. What kind of love does that? What kind of a King? It is too high and too wonderful for me to fully explain within my limits, but what I can say is that only a Holy God, a God who is love Himself, would do such a thing.

I still have a lot of maturing in my faith to do, but I will forever be shaped by the way Jesus ministered to me while in Japan and Rwanda. Sometimes it is in the midst of when we are supposed to be pouring out to others that we find Jesus is doing the most work in us. My prayer, as I walk away from both experiences, is that I will continue to be keenly aware of my own struggles and even more awake every day to God’s grace.

Interested in serving on an MTW internship? Apply now at mtw.org/internships.