Friends and Family, boy am I excited to tell you about life right now, but I’ll start with the basics.
I’m Katlyn Reece; a senior in high school, a lover of Christ, and a decent artist. My passion for missions is one that has grown throughout my high school career. Freshman year, I came in awkward and shy like most everyone else does. I figured I’d try out a club called Student Council, and 4 years later I’m president (ha ha ha). But the most important thing I learned from Student Council is the importance of choosing kindness and servant leadership. Who knew God would have used a club at a public high school to grow so much in me.
I started becoming more and more involved in my school, my church and my youth group and I started seeing God in so many different ways as high school went on. The biggest defining moment though was a trip I took to Louisiana my junior year to go to this whole big southern association of student councils conference. To make a super long story short, we had been learning about servant leadership the whole weekend and before we left the conference to go to New Orleans we had a keynote speak to us about choosing kindness. Once we were there and eating dinner, a homeless man kept a distance from us. He slowly inched forward every few minutes until he came up to our table quietly asking us for our leftovers. Everyone seemed to have brushed him off and he came back a couple times asking. I had such a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach, I knew what I needed to do, and so did one of my friends. So, after dinner we decided to gather our scraps and a couple dollars and take the man what we had. He was asleep on a bench nearby, but once he woke up and saw what we had, his face lit up.
Talk about joy.
As he was indulging, I offered to pray with him, just casually. He agreed so I went for it and once the prayer was over I realized most of the people we were originally eating with came over to join us. The moment I said, “Amen,” I noticed the man had been sobbing. He fell to his knees and immediately thanked us over and over again and started telling us his name, which is Marvin, his story, and how blessed he felt by us. You could seriously feel Gods presence. And then, before we walked off, he yelled, “God bless y’all!”
God bless us? Us, who felt like he was the one in need of all the blessings God could pour on him? Us, who appeared to have so much more than he does?
That’s where we went wrong. Marvin was already so blessed because he had been seeking Christ in his needs and knows that God is taking care of him, regardless of the state he’s in. How dare we see a person like him as poor, when his spirit is so rich in Christ.
And that’s where God moved so much in me and I felt the call to missions. He softened my heart and made me so passionate for those who are lost, those who feel unloved, and those who need a reminder that God has everything they’ll ever need in his heart. Yes, He did this through Marvin, the man on the bench in downtown New Orleans. God told me in that moment that it was time to use my passion of servant leadership and loving on people and take it home and to the ends of the earth because I couldn’t get enough of it. That was when I knew the World Race was something I craved.
The World Race is a 9 month long mission trip that I will be taking as a gap year once I graduate, from September of 2017 to May of 2018. I will spend time loving on people in Swaziland, Lesotho, India, Nepal, and Nicaragua, doing whatever my team and I are called to do to advance God’s Kingdom and to be the hands and feet of Jesus in a world that desperately needs Him.
I cant describe how excited I am for this opportunity, for missions has been something growing in my heart for a long time. To be able to do all of this though, I need to raise $14,951. Just a little overwhelming, I know, but I believe too much in the God of Faithfulness and Miracles to be discouraged by that! So, if you could support me, through prayer, encouragement, or even financially, that would mean absolutely everything to me. I can promise you that your support will not go to waste, as I press on chasing heaven on earth!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and for being a part of my adventure and the overall adventure of Missions that everyone is called to as a follower of Christ.
Love always,
Katlyn Reece
