I had my ICO journey mapped out. God had different ideas.
By Mary Golias · Contributing Writer
My Inner-City Outreach experience has been a saga of things not going how I planned.
It all started sophomore year when I was a part of the ICO Tucson, Ariz. team. I participated in all the prep for the trip, paid for my airplane tickets and even made it to the night before we flew out of Pittsburgh.
There was only one problem. I was sick. I tried to convince myself by going to all my classes earlier that day that I was well enough for the trip, but through the entire day, I had no peace.
Everything felt wrong as I was sitting playing games with my team. I didn’t hear God’s voice, but I had an unexplainable feeling that God wanted me to go home.
I was livid. Why would God want me to leave a mission trip – a time dedicated to serving him? Why would I come this far to have to go home and sit around all of spring break?
I was so frustrated with God and wanted to understand why this was his plan for me.
The first thing I learned through that disappointment was that I needed to discover how to rest. The spring semester of my sophomore year was the most overcommitted I had ever been, and it led to terrible burnout at the end of the semester. Without going home, I know I would have suffered from much worse burnout than what I endured.
It took a year, but during my junior year I got to see more of why God took me away from ICO Arizona. I wanted to give ICO trips another shot, but I was scared to commit to the entirety of spring break. That was when I heard about ICO Philadelphia. The trip to Philly was only half of the break, which meant I could still rest for five days. I joined the team and grew to love everyone through our weekly meetings and prayer groups.
It was an incredible blessing to be part of a group of students whom I wouldn’t normally interact with and to be able to encourage each other through the year.
The trip itself was such a fun and uplifting week. It was full of fun road-tripping, service, Wawa runs, worship and even a visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
ICO Philly partners with The Philadelphia Project, which is a nonprofit organization that partners with local churches, nonprofits and homeowners to build a better Philadelphia. Our stay at the Philly Project was incredible, and I fell in love with the organization and the people there.
One day during our service, a pastor of a local church, Pastor Mark, told me I have, “the face of a missionary,” and for some reason that has stuck with me ever since.
Almost every day of our trip, the service trip manager, Courtney Zellers, was sharing details of the summer internship program at The Philly Project. I was looking for internships at that time but making no progress in my other applications.
It felt like God was nudging me again. Before spring break was over, I had applied for an internship, and I interviewed the Monday that classes started back up. I landed an internship with them less than a week later.
This summer I spent 12 weeks in Philadelphia as The Philadelphia Project’s media intern. This experience produced so much growth in my faith, my profession and my relationships with others.
I was constantly looking back to my sophomore year and thanking God that I did not go on my first ICO trip. If I had, I would have never spent my summer with an unbelievable group of people, making a difference in Philly.
I am planning to go on two ICO trips during my senior year: ICO Aliquippa over fall break and ICO Philadelphia over spring break. Over the years of serving on short-term mission trips, I have fallen in love with them and look for opportunities whenever I can get them.
My love for ministry, and Pastor Mark’s “face of a missionary” remark, have made me seriously consider missionary work after I graduate. I genuinely have no idea what I will be doing a year from now, but I will say with confidence, “Here I am, Lord, send me.”
