Seeing as this is my first official blog post I thought I could simply start by telling you a little more about my journey as well as how I found out about the World Race.
In May I will be graduating from Stetson University with a degree in Elementary Education. Throughout my three years at Stetson I have completed hours of fieldwork in various classrooms. I just finished my senior internship teaching fourth grade. I have found my passion in teaching. There is something magical that happens when I walk into a classroom. I love the challenges I face in the classroom and the amazing the opportunity teachers have to make an impact on the lives of young children.
I have always loved serving others. The summer before my senior year of high school I wanted to go on a short-term mission trip. While searching the Internet I found the World Race. The World Race is a Christian mission trip where participants spend 11-months volunteering in 11 different countries. I was immediately intrigued at the idea of leaving EVERYTHING behind and traveling the world. Unfortunately, you had to be 21 in order to participate. This meant that this was not going to be an option at the time. That summer I was able to travel to Haiti with a local church and I fell in love with the country and its people. I longed to go back. I knew that ultimately I wanted to spend more time doing mission work.
The idea of going on the World Race continued to rest in the back of my mind. In the meantime, I went back to Haiti and also went on several regional mission trips with college campus ministries. Eventually, I could not ignore the fact that over the years things have seamlessly fallen into place. I went from telling everyone I wanted to be part of this incredible opportunity to telling everyone I was going to go on the World Race one day. In August I finally started my application and in November 2014 I was accepted to the World Race! My route will leave in July 2015 and travel to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, Thailand, India, Nepal, Cambodia, and Vietnam. It is hard to believe that I am finally going on the World Race. I am not sure what this next year will contain, but I am ready for the adventure!
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” – Dr. Maya Angelou
