It is amazing to me how God takes our wildest dreams that we never even thought possible, shatters them, and puts them back together in a new, fresh, and exciting way that is aligned with His will for our lives. All my life, I dreamt of the day that I would get to see the world and experience the fullness of the many cultures within. Later, in my late junior high, and early high school years I began to fall in love with debate and learned that I wanted to pursue law. When I discovered that I could go to school in Australia and study international civil law, that is all I wanted to do. This was a way for my dreams to merge together and I would be able to argue cases all over the world.
Then, God happened. During the spring break of my sophomore year of high school, I went on mission in Quito, Ecuador to share my faith with local high school students. On my team’s second day in the schools I had an incredible opportunity to pray with 12 students to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior. In that moment, I stood up and, clearer than reality, I heard God say these words to me, “This is what you are going to do for the rest of your life.” This freaked me out! I didn’t know what it would mean and that worried me.
Eventually, I said, “You know what? Yes, God, let’s do this!” and I ran with it immersing myself in it in every way I knew how. The closer that I got to graduation, I realized that I didn’t really know what the best course of study would be for me, so taking a gap year became a real consideration for me. Around the same time, a dear friend of mine got home from his World Race Gap Year and it seemed like this mission program was in my face everywhere I looked, so I prayed about what it would look like for me to go on the race. After weeks of prayer, I decided that I would say yes until God said no. I applied, I was interviewed, I was accepted, I have been raising money ever since, and so far God has left the door wide open.
The World Race Gap Year has made a way for me to spend nine months doing what I know God has called me to do, while praying about what my future in ministry could look like. I am also getting the amazing opportunity to live out my dream of being an international lawyer in a way that I didn’t even think possible. God has given me this chance to travel all over the world arguing the greatest case in all of history, the case for Christ.
