Hello everyone! If you’ve made your way to this post I imagine you want to know a bit about me. Or maybe you thought the “About Me” would be about you – a sort of digital age Mirror Mirror on the Wall?
Firstly, if you’re in the habit of fishing for compliments by asking strange bloggers “Who is the fairest of them all,” I suggest, and I say this because I care, you find a better (read “healthier”) means of finding self worth.
Secondly, this particular post is not about you, unless you are me, in which case I am very confused because I thought I was me. But if you are me and I am not, either there has been a rip in the space-time continuum or we are both Arnold Schwarzenegger from that movie “Total Recall,” and in either case we’ve both got bigger problems to address than this blog post because one of us is wearing the other’s underwear.
Maybe I’ll just change the title of this post to “About the Author” and save us all the confusion that comes of vague titles like “About Me”… except then I’d have to rewrite this post. Otherwise the beginning would make no sense.
In any case, my name is Joshua Gill, whether or not yours is too, and I am a 23 year old recent graduate of Baylor University, a story-teller, an adventurer, and currently and most impressive of all, an intern. My family and I live in Atlanta, GA, where we’ve sort of settled after a few years of moving around from Texas to California back to Texas then to Florida and now Georgia. I am the oldest of three kids, the other two being my younger sisters who are each fantastic people who you would count yourself lucky to know. The same can be said of my parents.
I studied English and Journalism in Baylor’s honors program with the hope of one day becoming a successful author of fiction. I’m still working on making that dream a reality. In the past year and a half I’ve worked as a mountain ranger in the Rockies at Philmont Scout Ranch, a retail worker at REI, an external affairs intern, a demolition and construction worker, and an intern journalist.
In addition to writing and storytelling, I have a passion for purposeful adventure – that is living an adventurous life for the sake of others and for the sake of the Gospel. I believe that the need for adventure is an innate human quality that God put in each of us to embolden us to love well and to do what and go where others will not for the life of the world. I also have a passion for relational ministry and encouraging and developing life-giving relationships and discipleships that help people see just how valuable they are in the eyes of God, realize their identity and calling in Christ, and point them toward Christ when life’s path becomes difficult or painful.
Through the opportunity I have to participate in The World Race, I hope to combine my love of travel, my skills as a storyteller and professional backpacker and my passion for life-giving, Gospel driven relationships to join in the work God is doing in each of the countries in which we’ll be serving. I want to share the love of Christ with the people we meet and to draw closer and grow stronger in my own walk with Christ. Over the course of this adventure I pray that God will continue to develop the heart of a servant leader within me, so that I may serve others well and love others well in better ways than I ever have when I return to the states.
If you have a heart for this form of service, or for adventure, or if you just want to see what I’m up to on my madcap version of a life path, I invite you to follow my blog and share in the adventure with me. If you want to do what I’m doing, feel free to check out the different routes The World Race has to offer and the various kinds of missions they have. Lastly, if you feel led to join this adventure in support of me or the Gospel driven mission of Adventures in Missions – whether that be through prayer, encouragement, or donations of gear or funds – I welcome and am thankful for all the support you have to offer, even if it’s just a quick word of prayer. If you do want to donate funds, you can do that through the “Support Me” tab, or if you’d like to donate gear, contact me at [email protected]
If you don’t already know me personally, I hope you’ll follow this blog over the next year or so and get to know me, and ideally the Gospel, a bit more!
P.S. if you are actually me and you remember where I, or you, or I guess we, put my, or our, dress socks that look like sharks, please remind – we? us? someone? – where they are. What an average Monday this is turning out to be…
