Dear Supporters,
I have recently felt a tugging in my heart to reach out to you. I do not think that I have made the best efforts to communicate the work I’ve been doing, where my heart has been through this journey, or even what this journey has entailed. So, I wanted to reach out and tell you what opportunities and adventures that your money and prayers have allowed me to experience. After all, the Lord blessed you and allowed you to bless me, so I think it’s imperative that you understand how grateful I am, as well as that none of your support has gone unnoticed, or to anything of unimportance. The money that you have given and prayers you have prayed, brought me on the world race, so everything that I have been able to do, see, and enjoy is because of you.
That being said, here is a list of the things that your support has allowed me to experience and celebrate:
- Live in Guatemala for 3 months. And during those months…
- Help set up/decorate for and enjoy a Guatemalan wedding
- Raise money for new books in the schools of Guatemala
- Use those new books to teach teenagers morals and lessons of life from a biblical standpoint
- Build a 3 bedroom home for a family of 7 living in a one bedroom house
- Bless multiple coffee shop and small business employees with friendship and encouraging conversation
- Serve and love our ministry hosts and their families
- Go to the lake for a ministry retreat and pour out love as well as be poured into
- Pray over classrooms filled with teenagers for their current situations and futures
- Build many, many relationships with locals
- Facetime and communicate with my family
- Make promotional videos for my ministry host to get the word out about his work and goals for his ministry
- Level out land for another house for a family in a village
- Offer help and encouragement to young Guatemalan missionaries with their fundraising
- Serve and love on the staff and members of Shoreline Guatemala, a church plant from Texas
- Celebrate my 20th birthday in a beautiful city surrounded by incredible new friends
- Meet a homeless man named Ceasar in a Dunkin Donuts, which allowed me to pour into and pray over him, as well as give him a way to contact his daughter that he had not spoken to in months. Coolest thing ever.
- (Barely) Climb the 3rd largest volcano in Central America
- Move to Africa for 3 months. And during those months…
- Do door to door evangelism, pray over people, and share God’s word
- Pray healing over a woman and watch as God answered and deliver her from pain and blindness
- Completely plan a whole church service for our squad.. bulletins, worship, message, and all. Then watch as it united our squad further into stepping up as the members of the body of Christ and become the church
- Let the kids at a children’s village put cornrows in my hair after specifically asking them not to. Then pray for grace and patience
- Preach the word to elderly people at a feeding program
- Play a ridiculous amount of soccer, handshake games, and “little Sally Walker” with kids from orphanages and feeding programs
- Work with Ten Thousand Homes doing various activities and projects
- Drive 5 hours away to swim in a freezing cold waterfall, fully clothed, with awesome people. Then eat KFC after
- Lead worship, give testimonies, and words of encouragement to multiple African churches
- Walk across the Lesotho border to South Africa, just to turn around and walk right back. And get 4 passport stamps within 10 minutes
And currently….
- Partner with Youth for Christ Lesotho… disciple and build trusting, fruitful friendships with about 20 teenage boys
- Let the boys show us up at volleyball, chess, and many other games
- Answer the boys’ hard questions about Jesus and what being a Christian is about
- Leave the youth center with a happy, full heart everytime we go
- Serve and love our African ministry host and her family… even her really bratty 2 year old niece
- Sometimes aggravate the 2 year old niece when you’re bored and you forget that you’re actually 20 years old and not 5
- Go to mall with goodie-bags filled with candy, cookies, and bible verses and hand them out to strangers in passing. This opened a door for intentional conversation with people and abled us to pray over them
- Tell bible stories and sing worship songs to children at a Lesotho orphanage
- Pray over our taxi drivers
- Pray over pretty much anyone the Lord leads us to
- Build life-long friendships with squad-mates as they pour love, grace, and wisdom unto me and I unto them
- Watch as God shows up in the most unlikely of places
- Watch as God never fails to fill me with strength, love, and joy when I’m sure that I’ve reached my end
- Watch as God blows my mind with something new about Him every single day
- Rejoice in gladness and erupt in praise over every moment that the Lord has given me these past 5 months
So, that is what the last 5 months of my life have looked like. They have been radical and life changing. I have been forced into growth. Forced to step out into boldness and leadership. And pushed into doing the hard things. But… I’ve been loved, encouraged, and in great company the entire way. Thank you for the love you’ve shown to me by paving a way for me to experience all of these things. If you were wondering what your money and prayerful support has gone to… this is it. It’s gone to bringing kingdom on earth. And do you want to know what the cool part is? There’s still 4 months left. 🙂
Much love,
Kat, Katie, and/or Katherine
