Hey there! Whether you are one of my best friends, a family member, acquaintance, or complete stranger welcome to my blog and thanks for visiting. This is my first blogging experience so you may need to bear with me! This January I will be leaving for 11 months to 11 different countries for the sole purpose of sharing God’s love and the power of the Gospel. I am so excited to see what the future holds and share that with you but first I want to tell you about where I have come from. My heart is always growing, breaking, and molding everyday and everywhere I go I feel like sometimes I leave pieces of me behind.
The first part of my heart is in my hometown of Norwalk, Iowa. I have 2 amazing parents and a younger brother and sister who are always down for shenanigans. Growing up I was involved in several different things like cross country, choir, band, basketball, soccer, and 4-H off and on and never really excelled in anything but loved being involved! I’m a country girl at heart and there is nothing that I love more than county fairs, gravel roads, and open skies.
Bellevue, Nebraska holds another dear place in my heart. My entire extended family lives here so I am always pumped for holidays when we take road trips to go hang out with them. My cousins, and aunts and uncles are the bomb and not to mention that my grandma is one of my best friends.
Cedar Falls, Iowa is where I spent three and half years earning a Bachelor’s Degree, but I did so much more than school. This is the place where I truly began following God while in a life changing Bible Study my Sophomore year and made some of my best friends. My years in college were easily my craziest, busiest, and most memorable days I have ever had. GO PANTHERS!
I can't even put into words my past three summers spent working in Story City, Iowa at a summer camp. Love and grace fill the trees and my faith is constantly growing and being tested. The relationships that I have gained from camp will forever be some of my best friends. I can talk about how much God moves through Riverside and what a wonderful place it is and tell stories for days!
Ames, Iowa has been my latest, unexpected adventure. Disappointed about having to move to Ames for an internship but it quickly became a huge blessing. God placed me in an amazing small group and provided me with a family to live with that blessed me with so much more than shelter. It was also a cool time to reconnect with old friends and get a taste of what the “real world” has to offer.
So there ya go. That pretty much sums me up. My heart is constantly being left in places and with people that have shaped who I am. I am excited, nervous, scared, apprehensive and so many other adjectives for the next 11 places I will be visiting but more than anything I can't wait to see how God uses my team and I to connect people to each other and most importantly to Him.
