Hello Everyone! My name is Kelly Makenna Loughran; I am currently a senior in high school whose world was recently rocked by the calling of Jesus. How? You may ask, well here’s my story.
I have grown up going to church and being heavily involved in youth group and my small group. Jesus has always been a big part of my life but I never knew how that would impact my life to want to share his grace with others.
When I was in 7th grade, I went to a Christian weekend camp with my church called CIY Believe. At the beginning of the trip, my super-duper awesome small group leader Ally told me to ask myself while I was there “What is God trying to tell me, and what am I going to do about it?” One of the messages was delivered by the well-known Bob Goff. He happened to bring a group of Ugandan children dancers to dance for us. After the performance he explained what he had been doing in Uganda and the different things he got to see and experience. I was deeply moved by his story and felt this tight pull on my heart, literally. After he finished his sermon, the song “Oceans” played by Hillsong United (if you haven’t heard this song before I deeply recommend listening to it and realllly comprehending the lyrics). The words “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me, take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, and my faith will be made stronger, in the presence of my Savior”, hit me like a rock you could say. I accidentally (or not so accidentally) started crying. They were tears of joy and confusion, joy because I felt our Savior showing me his plan for me, confusion because it wasn’t the plan I really wanted him to have for me (at first).
For those who know me know that I have had my future planned since I was like 9. I went from wanting to be a dolphin trainer, to working with special needs children in some way. But after being hit by this metaphoric rock I asked myself “What is God telling me and what am I going to do about it?” I felt like I should DO more for others and show LOVE for others more. I felt I should assist the special needs children that are too quickly neglected in foreign countries.
As life has gone on since 7th grade, I have become insanely close with my small group and small group leaders. I have volunteered at our local hospital in the Pediatric Gym with the Pediatric Occupational Therapist. In the room, we mainly focused on special needs children and basically created fun games for these children that actually were bettering them as well. You could say I fell in love with this career I was shadowing.
So from there I thought I had it all planned out. I envisioned graduating high school, going to college and playing volleyball at the collegiate level, going for my doctorate in Pediatric Occupational Therapy, graduating, and then starting life. Maybe eventually I could start a mission trip focusing on special needs children in other countries.
Now, where did The World Race fall into all of this? Well one of my best friends Katy Nolasco is actually currently on the race. She is the one who got me into all of this. It started by me helping her fund-raise and ended up being long, long conversations about how awesome this opportunity is for her and I was even a bit envious of her courage. I had my plan for life and I didn’t have room for twists and turns in the road. So I kept my envy to myself and just expressed my awe of how amazing I thought what Katy was about to embark on was. So I became super involved in Katy’s new adventure and probably asked her about 200 too many questions but ya know it’s fine! And Katy was fully ready to answer each one with grace.
About a week before Katy launched she texted me explaining to me how she had me on her heart while she was praying. Little did she know I was going through a hard time and she was the answer to my prayers. Katy explained to me that the new Gap Year routes had been released and how she knew that I had my plan and putting off college wasn’t a part of it. She asked that I at least look over the different routes and then text her if one stands out. So out of curiosity I looked at the 2017 Gap Year routes and route 5 seemed to say “Kelly research me and apply now!”. I texted Katy in all caps and lots of emojis and exclamation marks ROUTE 5, because how else can you express excitement over text? She quickly responded (sometimes rare with Katy) (sorry Katy, LOVE YOU) “OH MY GOSH THAT’S THE ONE I WAS PRAYING OVER FOR YOU, I KNEW IT”.
I got the privilege to take Katy to the airport the day she launched and stayed the night at her house. Of course I made her unpack everything and show me how she made it all fit inside her what seemed so small backpack. Honestly, it’s pretty magical how it all fits. Katy and I had some late night talks and I ended up applying for route 5 right then and there. I didn’t finish the application that night seeing as I needed to do a lot of prayer over this leap of faith. So I confronted my parents about the idea the next day and prayed alllottt over this matter. My parents were very supportive and excited for me! The more I thought about it the more taking a Gap Year began to make sense and fall into place. After all the prayer, conversation and thought that went into this, I knew God was telling me GO!
Now I am insanely excited that I have been accepted and can’t wait to LOVE God radically, SERVE others compassionately and LEAD people to Jesus in Haiti, Botswana, South Africa, the Dominican Republic and the Philippines.
I will need a lot of support through prayer and financially as well to do so; I will be doing plenty of fundraising and sending out my support letter soon. Any way that you feel led to support me would be extremely awesome and insanely appreciated!
Also, “go you!” for making it through my first crazy long blog (sorry about that!) Be sure to subscribe to my blog to follow along my journey as I walk this path that God has paved for me!
