Hey friends and family!
I’m here today to share some amazing news with you. First I just want to say that God is amazing and he has been showing me a lot in my first year of Bellevue Masters commission!
But God is not done yet and that’s what I’m here to share with you
A lot of you might think you know me but today you’re truly going to get to know me and my heart. I felt like God was pressing on my heart to tell you a little bit of my testimony and what God has brought me through. So as I open my heart and show you a little glimpse of my life please listen to what God has shown me and be encouraged that He can change your life, too.
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 my basic educational needs. Eventually I was adopted by my grandparents at the age of 8. I started going to church when I was in the second grade but I didn’t fully understand who God was and let him into my life until my junior year of high school.
At a very young age I was sexually, emotionally, and physically abused. At the age of 14 I finally told someone. Because of this I was very sexually active and was looking for love in all the wrong ways. People knew and my family knew but I felt like I wasn’t getting the help I needed. So I didn’t change. My freshman year of high school I got beat up by some of my so called friends. It tore me to pieces. That was one of the hardest things I have ever been through. It got worse and worse so I transferred to another school and finished my freshman year there. I would have loved to stayed but I wasn’t getting the schooling that I needed so I went back to the school where I got beat up. That was one of the hardest things for me—to face my fears and let God use me in ways I never thought were possible.
Going into my sophomore year I was very emotional and self-harmful. I felt alone, like I had no friends that I wasn’t loved. Yes I was still going to church but never let God or leaders into my life. But then something changed. I changed.
I found Jesus and I didn’t want to go through the motions any more; I stopped being sexually active and didn’t want to hurt anyone or myself any more.
But then came my Junior year. Junior year is already known for being one of the most difficult years of high school and for me it was just that. Now I had God but I still felt alone. In the middle of my junior year my grandpa got very sick. So sick that there was ambulance at my house almost every month. I never knew if my grandpa was going to make it or not, or know if I’d ever see my grandpa again. Now my grandpa is the only male figure I have had in my life right so I thought I was losing everything I had. So I slipped back into being emotional, sexually active, running away from home, having an attitude, and not being respectful at all.
I almost got to the point of going to a foster home but then I found God again and I let him handle all my problems. My junior year I went on a missions trip to Ireland and God showed Himself to me. He showed me that I don’t need boys to show me love and I can’t let my emotions get best of me.
I allowed God be God and let him change me and make me into a new creation. I came into my senior year not caring what people thought of me because I knew my God and I knew I had been made new in my relationship with Him. I was on fire like never before and led so many students to Christ. It was incredible. I finally felt like I could be the Katie God created me to be.
Life was good until the day I got a call that my grandpa wasn’t doing so hot. The doctors had told my grandma that he wasn’t going to make it this time. Almost a week later, I got a text from Grandma while I was in school saying to come to the hospital right away. But by the time my sisters and I got there, my grandpa was already gone. All I remember is falling to the ground, knowing that I just lost the best father figure I could ever have. That was one of the hardest days of my life.
Going back to school was hard and I actually started skipping school, my classes, track practice etc.
I gave up on my senior year. Somehow I graduated highschool—it was a God year. It was a year of hard times, but I knew that God was with me through it all. Honestly looking back at it, it was the best year I could have ever had. God has brought me through some hard stuff in life but it’s my testimony.
It’s crazy with all the stuff I have gone through and where I’m at today in my walk with Christ. My senior year at summer camp, the title was My Story, and here I am almost a year later finally getting the guts to tell my story to share where I was before I met Christ, when I met Christ, and now how I know God has big plans for me. I know it and I’m here waiting to share with you what this 2017 school year has for me. I have an amazing opportunity to join the World Race. The World Race is a nine month program. I will be going to six different countries as a missionary. As most of you may know, I want to open up my own orphanage. God continues to bless me and open doors for my life, and this is the next step he has for me for my future.
God is amazing. He’s knows how to use a broken girl and make her new again. God has given me this mess to make a message, to go out and share what God has done in my life.
So will you join me in prayer and support me on my trip to the World Race?
I hope my message is encouraging and that you would know that God can still use you when you think he can’t. I mean just look at my story because he has used me. At the end of the day it’s not about how much money I raise but the fact that I can reach one persons life.
