I grew up in Vail, Colorado, am 25 years old, and am the only child of very patient and supporting parents. Both academically and spiritually, it has taken me a while to come around. After six years, I finally graduated from Pepperdine University with a degree in International Management and a minor in Spanish. Only four and a half years were spent in school. Still, I took the scenic route. Spiritually, growing up in Vail, my parents were Christians, and I went to church regularly, but I still didn’t see the Christian faith as my own. I thought the world had more to offer. I was wrong. My own clumsy attempts at life and direction throughout college brought me nothing but emptiness and confusion. It brought me to my knees, where Christ found me, and gave me the courage to turn my life over to Him.
Other than faith, travel has been the biggest part of my journey. In college, I studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Florence, Italy. During a year and a half that I took off from college, I spent a year working for an international conference recording company, and several months teaching English to street kids in Managua, Nicaragua. The children I taught in a Managua dump opened my eyes to the poverty in the world, broke my heart for the poor, and ever since has kept my life in perspective.
It wasn’t until I went to Brazil after graduation with an organization called Kingdom Building Ministries that I found my call to missions. Before that time, I was considering a 9-5 job with an international business. My time in Brazil changed that. For the first time God took me out of the equation. My self-centeredness, for once, didn’t get in the way. He worked through me, and people came to Christ. After that, a desk job didn’t look the same.
I found out about the World Race through a friend at Kingdom Building Ministries, where I will be working up to the time I leave for the WR. I knew from the moment I heard about it that it was where God was leading me.
Quick Facts:
I love dogs, languages, skiing, watersports, any spicy food, writing, reading, yoga, travel, and golf when I shoot well. I am a certified WFR (Wilderness First Responder) and PADI Rescue Diver. I speak Spanish, and am attempting to learn the almost impossible Chinese language. Not doing very well with that, if anybody has any hints.
Life Verse:
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”(Ephesians 3:17-21)
I pray this prayer for the World Race. I pray that we become witnesses to the love of Jesus Christ, and the miraculous that only comes through reliance in Him.
