My name is Kylie-Jo Miller and I am 18 years old. I am a senior at Huntingdon Area Senior High School in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. I live with my wonderful parents, Jerry and Tracie Miller. I have two sisters, Stephanie (29 years old) and Mackenzie (20 years old). Stephanie is married and has three of the most perfect little boys, who I am blessed to call my nephews. Mackenzie is engaged and will be getting married this summer. Growing up, God has blessed me immensely with such an amazing, God-serving family who helped me build my relationship with Christ. I grew up in The First Church of the Nazarene in Mcconnellstown, PA where my passion for mission work was sparked. I remember wanting to go on a mission trip since I was around ten years old. I loved when missionaries would come into our church and share their experiences. I remember one Sunday evening when a team just got back from Costa Rica and they were sharing a presentation on their trip. I was so engrossed in their experiences and pictures. My little, hopeful, 15-year-old self turned to my parents and for the first time, after years of begging and pleading, they did not shake their heads in disagreement. Instead, they looked at each other and told me we would talk about it once we got home. At that moment, God started to prepare my heart for the years of mission work I had yet to know were before me. I’m not sure if my parents ever officially verbalized their permission for me to go on the mission trip that December 2016 to the Philippines. We all just had such peace that that is where and when God wanted my future in mission work to begin. So July 24th, 2016 I started my new, God-lead journey by getting baptized. I wanted to make a public proclamation of my faith in Jesus Christ by allowing God to wash my sins away and come up clean and new and ready to serve him with my whole life. After never being away from my family for longer than a night or two, I committed to a two-week long mission trip to a country across the globe; yet, there was simply no fear inside of me. While fundraising, I got to talking to my one teacher about the experiences I was so excited to have. During our conversations, she had mentioned that she was going to be leaving in December as well for a mission trip of her own in Ecuador. My heart immediately started racing and I called my mom as I was walking down the hallway of my high school and told her that I did not know the reason why, but I needed to go to Ecuador with Miss. Jones. After a very short amount of time, and never being outside of the country before, I was signed up for two mission trips, just a week apart from each other. I had just five months to raise about $4,500 in total for both trips. As I look back, I honestly can not tell you how I raised all of the money but God definitely provided for me. Not even two full weeks after I returned to the States after my mission trip to Ecuador, I was signed up and fundraising for trip number three- El Salvador. I simply remember being so on fire for Christ. I was overflowing with joy because God had placed this passion to serve him in other countries on my heart. I love showing love to others. I love being able to offer my hands and feet to help those less fortunate. For that reason, six months later, I was signed up and fully ready for mission trip number four. I think at that point, my parents just expected me to leave on one mission trip and come back signed up for the next. I was just so excited to have the next trip to prepare for; completely ready to see and experience what God had in store for me next- He was sending me back to Ecuador. I worked with the same organization and I was able to see some of the same loving and generous kids as I did the year prior. It was really amazing to see how much God has worked through the organization within the year. As long as you completely surrender your life to God, He will start to move in more ways than you could ever imagine. I’ve been learning that for the past three years of my life. Though He shows me time and time again that I can put all of my trust in Him, I still have those shameful moments of doubt. As my sister’s Pastor stated last Sunday, “Jesus offered His presence to Thomas in the midst of His doubts”. In times of questioning and doubt, God does not leave us nor forsake us even then. He actually does the complete opposite. He draws us nearer to Him and shows us that there is no reason to worry. Even though we do not deserve the love and grace that God shows us each and every day, He still does not turn His back on us, even during the times when that’s exactly what we do to Him. Once I returned from Ecuador the second time, I was a little bit confused. I felt as though God had not revealed a mission trip to me that I felt called to go on. I was used to already being signed up for the next one before I even returned home. However, that was not the case this time. For some reason God wanted me to wait a year before leading me to my next destination. Within that year, I flew to Georgia and took part in a missions conference where I was able to deepen my knowledge of mission work. I learned many valuable lessons there and it was just all around an amazing experience where I was able to interact with long term missionaries about possible opportunities in the future. A few months after the conference, God called me back to El Salvador on a very special mission trip, and my fifth. The organization we worked with before was in need of a Christmas team. When I heard about this, I automatically knew God was calling me to be one of the lucky people who were able to experience the many blessings that week. Every single mission trip is special and unique in its own way. For me, God always tends to teach me a new lesson on everyone. This Christmas trip though…it was unlike anything you could imagine. The words in a blog post just cannot reveal how special this trip was. I know for my family, in particular, it was a very difficult Christmas to miss. As I mentioned earlier, my sister Mackenzie is getting married in July and that was going to be our last Christmas together as a whole family. Perhaps that is what made this trip so special to me – I had to give up something that meant so much to me in order to follow God’s calling. After all, it was the season of giving and what better gift than one’s time and love. Also on this trip is where I heard about the World Race. There was a team in the middle of their 11-month trip who happened to be in the same country as us, working with the same organization as us. One night we invited them to come over to our home and share their testimonies with us. Upon hearing their testimonies and listening to their experiences, I knew I had to at least look into and consider the World Race. This is coming from the girl that could never picture a “dream job” in her future. My friends would always talk the whole way through elementary school about being teachers, doctors or veterinarians. They would look at me and ask me what I wanted to be and I never knew what to tell them. Then high school came around, especially junior and senior year, and the pressure was on to figure out what I wanted to do after I graduated. It is kind of expected from you to go on to some type of higher education, but I simply knew that was not for me…at least not right away. I had to do something and as colleges were contacting me and my college advisor was asking me if I had filled out my FAFSA yet, I figured I should at least apply to a few colleges just in case. After getting accepted to four different colleges, I heard about the World Race and I knew God was revealing a less-typical path for me to venture on. So here I am – four months and seven thousand dollars away from the biggest, most amazing experience of my life up to this point. I can not express how excited I am to simply love people and help anyone and everyone that God places in my life during those three months in Cambodia and Thailand. My goal in life is to leave pieces of my heart and all of God’s love all over the globe, in every country God calls me to.
“Perhaps that is why your heart needed to be broken during different parts of your life – Christ needed you to leave a piece of your heart, your love, in every place He sent you.”
Every heartbreak suddenly seems worth all of the temporary tears and pain.
