Hello friends and family I’m here to share with you a little bit about my life. I’m 19 years old from Lincoln Nebraska As a child, my parents didn’t make the best decisions and decided to divorce. As a result I moved back and forth between them both and eventually I was placed with my grandparents. All of this moving around caused me to lack in my education. I was in and out of school and wasn’t getting the basics of my education.
I didn’t attend a church regularly as a kid. In second grade I was invited by a friend to come to their church. Up until that point, I had never heard of Jesus or the Gospel message. I was in a lot of kids ministries such as Prims, Daisies, and Stars. I eventually began attending church about seventh or eighth grade. My grandma would drop me off and pick me up after.
I wasn’t able to travel a lot because of my childhood and later the health of my grandfather. I was able to go to Disney World and California with my sisters. We mostly went to theme and fun parks. We also traveled to see family every summer.
My six sisters and I have been living with my grandparents for thirteen years. That’s where most of my childhood happened. This is my relationship with all my family members :
Mom: My mom was a drug addict up until 2015 when she became clean. I’ve been able to talk to her and rebuild a relationship with her. We aren’t as close as I’d like to be, but I’m glad we’ve been able to talk. Not having that mother-daughter relationship has been hard for me. I’ve wanted to be able to talk with her about my mistakes and heartaches, but I wasn’t given that opportunity. My experience of what it meant to have a mom was very different from what a mom should be. When she signed the rights away to my grandparents, I felt hurt and unwanted. My mother’s actions have taught me that drugs make life more difficult than it has to be and they do terrible things to the person using them and the people around them.
Dad: We would go and visit my dad on the weekends, but eventually stopped going because he didn’t like having us. After he signed his rights as a dad away, he left. He never wanted to visit us or spend time with us. I didn’t really get to see him until my Senior year.
Siblings: I have five amazing sisters who make a great impact in my life. I learned from my older sisters’ mistakes and choices and how they’ve overcome them. From my younger sisters I’ve learned how to be a better leader to them and others like them. My sisters and I are very close and we tell each other everything. We go to each other for advice and offer different perspectives.
Grandma and Grandpa: They mean a lot to me because they took us in after everything else and they have been some of the best role models of God’s love that I’ve had. They put us girls first.
A glimpse of my Salvation story:
The day I truly found God was in ninth grade. There was a day when I was beat up by some of my so called “friends”, and I was trying to explain to my friend that she was making bad friend choices, but she disagreed. This was a moment for me. God wanted me to see who my true friends were.There were kids video taping me and pushing me into the lockers at my school. I had to start eating lunch in the lunch detention room and have a security guard walk with me and pick me up from my classes. I couldn’t handle it anymore and I had to leave the school.
That’s why I moved schools. I finished out my Freshman year at Lincoln Christian. I grew so much in my relationship with Christ and learned a lot. I would have loved to stayed at Lincoln Christian, but I wasn’t getting the classes I needed. I went back to Southwest my Sophomore year. It was really hard for me. A lot of people looked at me and judged me. I was asked questions about what happened the last year.
My Sophomore summer, I went to Alaska for a mission trip. There I became even closer to God and I saw things that I’ve never seen before. People were getting healed and I saw demons being cast out. It was crazy but in a good way. The summer of my Junior year, I went to Ireland. It was a really different experience from Alaska. We didn’t do the same things in Ireland as we did in Alaska. God grew me in different ways — ways that I never knew I could grow. I grew more in my love for God and my walk with Christ.
My current relationship with the Lord:
My relationship with God is the best it has ever been. The biggest difference has been going directly into a discipleship program after high school called Bellevue Master’s Commission (BMC). BMC has helped me grow a ton in my relationship with Christ. I can pick up my Bible and actually understand what it’s saying, where it’s taking place and why it’s happening. I’ve never been this hungry for God’s Word nor have I ever wanted to read the Bible in my free time, but that’s what I want to do now. The classes I take at BMC help me understand the theology of the Bible and why things happen. The program has built in prayer and worship time and because of this I can really dig deep and find out what they both of those things look like for me. During prayer I like to journal a lot and pour my heart to God using the pages. Having time for prayer and worship has really changed my perspective on my relationship with God.
This is what I’m currently doing in my relationship with christ.
Attending a discipleship program in Bellevue, Nebraska has helped me grow in my relationship with Christ. I have lots of mentors through this program who want to see me succeed in my relationship with God, in life and in my degree. I have leaders from my youth group back home who still contact me to make sure I’m doing well. We meet more than four times a mouth to just talk about the growth in my life and what God is doing in me. I also have six sisters who make a really big difference in my life and they mean a lot to me. I have learned what to do and what not to do through their success and mistakes. My friends make a great impact in me as well.
Some areas I want to grow in is my prayer time; listening to what God has to tell me and what I have to say to him, really using my time wisely and giving it to God. I don’t want to just grow in reading the Bible because that’s what I do the most, but I want to start using what I read and share it. That could be writing sermons, telling youth students about Christ, or praying over them the things He has asked me to.
One thing that is hard for me to give to God:
Forgiveness; it’s hard for me to understand it. I forgive because I am only hurting myself by not forgiving them and Jesus died on the cross because He loves us so much. He forgave my sins so I don’t have to pay for them and we are meant to love like Jesus does. If I don’t show people God’s love, who will?
I sometimes just feel like people are going to hate me and think less of me because of the stuff I’ve done. I have had people call me and treat me horribly and I still love them and care for them, but I just don’t understand why. I don’t understand how God can forgive me and died for me and he still loves me. It’s something I’ve been praying and asking God for guidance in my heart. I still struggle in this area.
I love growing in news ways, especially when it comes to being strengthened in the ways God wants to use me. I’ve never spoken in tongues, but I’ve always wanted to and I’ve asked God to show me this. I’ve had people pray over me for it, it just hasn’t happened for me yet. I’ve seen people be healed and stories of people being healed. It’s amazing to see how God can use all these gifts and make it happen. I love it. When I first came to faith, it was a little different/weird for me to see all of this for the first time, but I know its all from God and that’s amazing to know.
I have a passion for taking care of orphans, and letting people know that they are wanted, loved, and cared for. I also hold very close to my heart the desire to minister to and serve the victims of human/slave trafficking, and to be a part of that healing process as well. Other fun things that I’m passionate about: running, crafts, music, and the show ” The fosters”. (I’m also passionate about my ‘real-world’ my family and friends as well, because they’re awesome, and they’re going to change the world.)
I am so so excited and thankful and praising God for giving me the amazing opportunity to go on The World Race: Gap Year. It’s gonna be a crazy ride, and I cannot wait.
