Hello! My name is Laura and I am 20 years old… soon to be 21. I have spent most of my life in Northern Ontario, Canada. My family consists of my “little brother” (who is really a giant), my parents and my dog named Pockets. She’s eleven, but I still think of her as my puppy.
I work at a garden centre and have come to love flowers from that. I love traveling, enjoy making scrapbooks, playing games and reading. I grew up in a Christian home, my dad is the pastor of our church. So when I was five I prayed that little prayer about Jesus coming into my heart and that was that. For the majority of my life it did not really mean anything to me. There was not a whole lot of difference between my friends and I except that my parents made me go to church every Sunday, and that I attended conferences like Acquire the Fire, and went on a three week missions trip to England in grade nine.
Throughout high school I had a few ups and downs, but nothing ever seemed to last. Soon enough it came time for me to leave home and go to university. This is supposed to be the real test, where you either take what your parents have taught you, or leave it. At first I took the middle ground. I joined Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and made lots of Christian friends, but I still did not make a real connection with God. It was in third year, right as I was turning 20 that God basically screamed at me. He told me to break up with my boyfriend and to get real. Which is exactly what I did.
For the first time, God was in my life in a real way, doing some serious stuff. It was so cool. I got an accountability partner, I got baptized, and I actually started enjoying my devotional time. I could feel such a difference in my life, and I knew that finally this was real. It also happened to be my last year of university and so I needed to figure out what to do with my life. I did not have any real direction from school, since there is not a whole lot of jobs I was interested in with a Women’s Studies degree. I have always loved to travel, I have been to England twice, Italy, Greece, Germany, and France. I have also always had a passion for helping people especially those in the two thirds world, so that everyone can become sustainable and have food and an education. This desire to help people has always been at the forefront of my mind. When I attended the Urbana missions conference in St. Louis over Christmas, I heard God say quite clearly to me that I was to give Him the next year of my life. So when you combine all of that, traveling, helping people, and one year, it all seemed to point to
The World Race. I believe this is going to be an amazing experience, although a little scary, and I am looking forward to sharing it with everyone.
