Hola! My name’s Tiffany Noel, and I was born on Christmas Day of 1987! The middle name speaks for itself, but my first name means “presence of God”–so the name suits the birthday through and through. My parents are from Southern California, but they’ve given me quite the nomadic lifestyle with stops in Mexico, Japan, Ohio, and most recently Minnesota. San Clemente, CA in south Orange County has always been a constant, so it’s what I’m likely to call “home”. I just graduated from the University of Southern California in May of 2010 with a BA in International Relations/ Global Finance, which basically means I love to travel and study.
So. More about me. Let’s go…more about God. I was raised Catholic, going to church every single Sunday until I was 18 and moved half way across the country. So for the first few years of college, I chose to spend my weekend mornings sleeping in a bed instead of a pew. Sure, I prayed–for good grades, for safe merging onto crazy LA highways, and during airplane take-offs, but the relationship aspect was utterly lost on me.
‘super Christians’). I didn’t really get at the time that God was stripping me of everything so that I would realize I could do nothing to earn Him. That summer, I went to Cambodia for a summer course to study models of justice 30 years after the Khmer Rouge genocide of the late ’70’s. I was interviewing survivors and perpetrators who lived side by side. I was witnessing children who were forced into begging and child prostitution. I was seeing a population that everyone else had forgotten. And there was no hope. Beyond buying a child an ice cream cone, there was nothing of me that I could leave behind that could actually make a difference in their lives. And that was about when God came in the picture, showed me He was the only hope–for both Cambodia and me. The last year of college He changed my world. I left for Haiti on a relief mission trip with AIM two weeks after graduation where I learned how to let myself be loved. Six months later I left for my own World Race–eleven months that I spent learning to rest, learning to live from a place of royalty and humility, and embracing the identity the Lord has placed on me. I returned in November of 2011 and jetted off to G-42 Leadership Academy in Spain in April of 2012. During my six months at G-42, I was drenched in truth, and finally severed the lies still clinging to me. I came back in October of 2012, and am now off to squad lead new generation N squad! We launch in January, and I will stay with them for five months! From there, I’m moving back to Spain to become a full-time staff member at G-42!
A little bit more about me…
I love elephants. If I had bothered to love science, I’d probably be an elephant doctor and spend my lifetime rescuing them and rehabilitating them. Any country we visit where elephants are an option, my poor team will be haunted by them until I get even an hour with one.
I love Disneyland (not World) almost as much as elephants, although I hate Dumbo because it reduces me to tears.
I have an incredible family, both immediate and extended.
I devour literature, especially theological and American historical biographies, and just about any fiction.
I talk. A lot.
I LOVE spicy food… Tapatio sauce, red hot candies, Rooster sauce… You know the spicy that makes your brow sweat. And hot sauce is a LIFE SAVER on eleven months of rice and beans.
