Here is a summary of how I got here…
I was born Andrew Vinton Parkin on November 14, 1987 in Turlock, California. When I was born, it was discovered that I had a significant heart condition that would require numerous surgeries to save my life. The odds of me making it weren’t exactly in my favor, but I made it. This event, and the scars that accompanied it, largely was what I let define my life throughout my childhood. In addition to this, my childhood was a time a constant struggle, brokenness, frustration, and hopelessness. By the time I reached the age of 12, I had reached a state of emptiness I can only describe as rock bottom. Then God showed up.
He had been with me all along, but it took me losing all faith, trust, and hope in everything else for me to see that He was what I had been searching for. I started attending a youth group, heard the Gospel for the first time, and fell in love with Jesus. I gave my life to the Lord in 7th grade and watched my heart and my life transform in quick succession. I was a new person.
I entered high school on fire for the Lord, but halfway through my freshman year, I received crushing news: my heart was failing again. So I underwent another heart surgery, this time to have a pacemaker implanted (yes, just like your grandpa). Things did not go as planned following the surgery, and my heart stopped beating for a time. By the grace of God, my heart did start back up, but I came home mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted. The years that followed were a time of great apathy and hypochondria in my life, as I stopped going to school on a regular basis, and my grades dropped for the first time in my life. The only thing keeping me going was God. It was at this time that I first realized just how faithful He is, as something happened the summer between my junior and senior year that I can’t explain outside of his grace. I experienced a physical, mental, and spiritual transformation that restored my fire, and brought back my joy. I returned to school my senior year 5 inches taller and full of life, and as a result it was one of the best times of my life.
After graduating I went to Junior College back home for two years, but experienced little growth in my walk with God. I had formed the belief that I was a “good Christian” because I was generally nice to people and was really good as not saying swear words. This perception was blown up when I transferred colleges and moved away from home. I started going to a college group, and attended church regularly again. There, I heard a message that changed everything: “Walking with God is like riding a bike – If you just sit there and don’t pedal you will fall. If you want to follow God, you must move forward. You are not okay where you are, Christian, you have to grow.” From the point forward I stopped being a choir boy who followed legalism, and started being a disciple who followed Jesus. I started reading God’s Word for the first time, and I craved more of it. I started confessing my sins and finally allowed myself to be redeemed from them. I experienced real community for the first time, and eventually was empowered by the Holy Spirit to share my whole testimony with others. I was emboldened for the first time to share Jesus with people.
This culminated in the last quarter of my senior year, in which I became more on fire for that Lord than I had been since right after I was saved. I took a leap of faith and applied to go on a summer mission project just weeks before graduation. I was accepted, and just a few weeks later God provided all the financial support I needed in one instant. The day I graduated from college I left to go on summer project, and for the next 8 weeks I watched God grow me more in that time than I had experienced my whole life beforehand.
After project I was then blessed with an incredible job working for an education non-profit in South Los Angeles, which I consider to be perhaps the most important thing I have done in my life. I was blessed constantly by my kids and my co-workers, and was even given the opportunity to share my testimony in front of close to 100 of my colleagues. This experience solidified my belief that I was called to be an educator, and so after a year I enrolled in graduate school to earn a teaching credential and Master’s degree in education.
However, grad school was nothing like I expected it to be. It was a constant struggle, full of frustration, exhaustion, and failure, most of which had little to do with my teaching or my students. I had to take an extra quarter to finish my teaching credential, and failed to earn my Master’s. Through all of this, I had been praying about the World Race. When grad school was over, God made it abundantly clear that is where he was directing me.
So I will go. I will follow God’s leading through 11 countries in 11 months, laying down all I have, and relying upon Him and Him alone. I could never ask for anything better.
