NOW:
I JUST graduated from Drexel University with a degree in Culinary Science, and three minors (Chemistry, Marketing, and Culinary Arts)! At Drexel, I have been involved with Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), the Honors College Mentoring program, and helped start the Culinary Student Association.
I attend Antioch of Calvary Chapel and am on the leadership team for the recently launched RAIVE college ministry there. I have played soccer since I was 5, and am still playing now, well at least up until a few weeks ago. I have played for a German club in Warminster, PA for the past two years, but will obviously be taking a leave of absence for the next year.
In my free time [which there isn't much of], I enjoy cooking [baking especially], reading, playing sports [especially soccer, volleyball, football, ultimate, kan jam, and slack-lining], doing anything outside, running/working out, volunteering, making things, or playing with my roommate's dog.
THEN:
I grew up in a small town in the middle of farm country, right on the border of Lancaster County in Berks County. The culture was so similar, it might as well have been Lancaster County. My parents divorced when I was five and I learned to live at two different places at once. My parents tried to help my sister and me cope with the change; they only lived three miles apart for the majority of my school career. I never really attended church through most of my childhood, but always respected my best friend who regularly attended church. In middle school, she asked me to go to youth group with her, and eventually church. I gladly obliged and fell in love with what I found there. I attended that church until the day I left for college, Hopewell Christian Fellowship.
I attended Twin Valley High School and graduated in 2008. Through my high school years, I lived the "Christian life" and anyone who knew me would probably tell you that I was a Christian. but I don't think I fully understood what it meant to live for Christ and to pick up my cross and follow Him daily [but to be honoest, I am still learning what this means]. I did my best at the time, but through the past few years away at college, God has really been teaching me how to die to my flesh and live for His glory instead of my own.
I came to Drexel for completely selfish reasons: I wanted to play Division 1 soccer. Everything just seemed to be working out and I ended up committing to the team, verbally in December, and with a Letter of Intent in February. After trying to do college [and life] by my own strength, God quickly taught me how wrong I was. The first fall at school was probably the hardest time of my life: I was away from my family, I didn't really have any close friends on the team, I was struggling to earn playing time, I was doing everything the coaches told me to do, I had no time to spend with Cru [that I desperately wanted to get involved with], I had games every Sunday so could not regularly attend church, and my closest friends were now hours away attending different colleges.
After two years of struggling with my pride and dreams of playing college ball, I finally quit the team. It was the most liberating day in my recent memory. And a few days after, I went on Spring Retreat with Cru, which was so much sweeter than anything I had experienced before. I finally had time to devote to the friendships that I had so desperately wanted to start with the people in Cru. I had time to find a church to call home and to serve in. Looking back, quitting soccer was the best decision of my life thus far!
Since attending Cru's winter conference [Radiate] this past December, I have felt God calling me to go into full-time missions for a year after graduation. After several months of prayer and searching, my roommate told me about the World Race. I was instantly hooked and after praying about it, knew that this is what God had planned for me!
