HeLLo! 🙂 My name is Micah… and just to avoid any other confusion, yes I am a girl, and yes my mother was aware that my name is typically a boy name, and yes she decided it would be “cute” anyway. So, who am I?
I’m a daughter, a sister (times two), a middle child, a cousin, a niece, and an aunt (to the most adorable little boy in the whole world). I’m a friend, a listener, an encourager, and a mediator. I’m an athlete, a sport fanatic, an adventurist, a realist, a traveler, a runner, and a fierce competitor. I’m stubborn, friendly, sarcastic, silly, funny, even-tempered, and loving. Most of all… despite my ups and down, my successes and short-coming, I am a child of God.
A little history for you… (probably a little more than you care for, even)
I was born and raised in a small town called Alma, Arkansas. I have two sisters, and the greatest parents in the entire world. I’ve grown up in church, loving and praising God and spent most my time involved in church, school, or playing sports. Throughout my childhood Imy parents traveled around the world and back again making sure I made it to practice for school basketball, summer league basketball, summer swim team, year round swim team, gymnastics, dance, volleyball, track, and tennis. Somehow I squeezed in a couple years of piano lessons, and horseback riding in there as well. To say the least, I have grown up living a pretty active lifestyle and never really knew what it meant to just sit back and relax.
By the time I got to HS, I narrowed my sports down to just basketball, volleyball, & tennis. I graduated from Alma High School in 2004 and attended Arkansas Tech University on an acadmic scholarship, and ended up playing tennis for a couple of seasons there as well. I finally figured out that the real action in college sports was in intramurals, no coaches, no conditioning, just the fun! 🙂 During college, I also realized I had so much more to learn about God and about my faith. It was during that time that I really began to convert what I knew about God into how I knew about God. It was during this time that I learned not to just love God, but to fall in love with Him.
After graduating college in 2008, I had plans on attending graduate school in Tennessee but God had other plans for me. I came back home to Alma to work at the local Boys & Girls Club for the summer, and ended up staying there for 2 years! After working through a lot of ups and downs during those 2 years, and dealing with alot of children and families of hurt and brokeness, I knew God was ready to use me in a new way. Thanks to some major encouragement and confirmation from the wonderful people in my life, I followed God’s call on my life to take that experience and training to places outside my own hometown… which leads me to the World Race.
The Race
My feelings about the race are all over the spectrum. I am excited, I am scared, I am thrilled, and I am nervous. I just almost feel tears well up in my eyes when I think of how much I will miss my family and my friends during this time, but I know it will be worth all the homesickness. I am nervous about living for a whole year with people I will just have met. I feel inadequate, under qualified, and not nearly talented enough. And then I am reminded that this is not at all about me, this is about Him. I know God is going to break me, to humble me, and to reveal himself to me in ways that I have never even imagined. I know God is going to use myself and my team to be true vessels of His unconditional love to touch lives all over the world. I know that by the end of the trip, I will never ever be the same.
