Shaped for Mission

Recently I've been thinking about how I've been shaped so strongly with the agenda of mission being the natural assumption of my environment.  It's amazing how the air you breath is so strongly something that you take it for granted - and that's how it is with me and mission.  There are lots of ways in which that is true but recently I've been especially aware of how it was true in my teenage years - and for various reasons I think true for me more than even others who were around the same environments as I was.  It makes me see just how clearly God has shaped me into the person I am today.  I'm particularly thankful to the young adults and some other adults who were around me when I was a teenager for the way they have shaped a heart for mission into the very core of my being.  (well it was God who has - but very much helped by them)  People who had a heart for mission, local and overseas, were around me in every direction; I had the opportunity to be involved in running an outreach youth group when I was 16; I was around and involved in the running of a 4 week outreach thing when I was about 15; I ran various mission things at school during high school; I hung around with people who breathed mission with every fiber of their being; I got prayer letters from someone working as a boarding house teacher at a school and those letters and her life shaped me in my mission heart profoundly.  Today, my definition of mission might be broader but this is a key part of when and how my heart for mission was fostered - for which I'm hugely thankful.