My name is Emily Hartman. I was born in Alaska (my favorite fact about me), but only lived there for a few weeks. My family lived in Clarksville, TN for a couple of years and then moved to a small town near Fayetteville, NC where we have lived for the last 17 odd years. I have been going to church since day 1. I was raised in the Southern Baptsist church and it has served as the foundation for my faith.
The first time I really knew that God was real as when I was about 6 years old. I had been playing outside swinging around our basketball goal. As I was twirling I lost my balance and began to fall backwards. I then felt as though someone was pushing me back up and I regained my balance. It’s hard to explain, but there is no way I could have regained balance by myself. I was really amazed at the time, and as I was taking in my surroundings I realized that if I had continued to fall backwards my head would have hit a pile of bricks.
It wasn’t until I was about 16 when my faith really began to grow. In August, 2006 my mother died from cancer and I was left with a lot of questions about my faith. In hard times people either tend to run away from their faith or cling to it; I fell into mine. This is the time in my life where I talked to God, a lot. I really developed a relationship with Him, He was no longer the person we prayed to before dinner and worshiped on Sunday’s. He became the person I talked to when times were tough, or who I thanked when things were falling into place perfectly.
I’ve been involved in missions work before, having particpated in an event called World Changers for about 5 years. It’s a week long mission trip that youth groups are invovled in. You spend a week fixing up the homes of the elderly or less fortunate. I learned a lot during those trips (though, I didn’t take away to many construction skills) and I developed a love for missions.
I didn’t really choose the World Race, it chose me. In fact, I often find myself wishing I could be like many of my fellow peers and currently be picking out my first apartment awaiting my first paycheck. However, I’ve never really been one to follow the crowd, so it seems only natural that God would call me on such a radical adventure.
I encourage you to look around my blog and read my other posts (their will be more to come, I assure you). You can subscribe to get updates whenever I post a new blog by typing you email into the subscribe box. And if you feel called to support me you can click the Support Me! tab to donate or message me and I can give you the information on mailing in a donation (online donations take out 3-5% of your donation for processing fees)!
Feel free to leave comments or message me, I would love to hear from all of you!
Emily
