My name is Madison Kuykendall, but most people call me Maddie, and I’m 19 years old. I spent the first 7 years of my life in Houston, Texas, until we moved to Flower Mound, Texas where I’ve lived for the past 11 years. I currently live with my parents, Chris and Lori Kuykendall and my siblings, Katie, Zach, and Emma. Most of my time is spent at either the pool or the church. I recently quit diving at the national level and now I just coach diving lessons for beginning divers. If I’m not at the pool I am probably at the church. On Sunday mornings I lead a small group of 6th grade girls, and on Sunday nights I am in my own small group of senior girls. I spend a lot of time investing in my high school youth group on Wednesday nights, either hanging out with a group of incredible freshman girls, helping organize the game for the night or sometimes speaking and leading questions.
For a long time I have felt called to serve outside of the United States. My freshman year of high school I was given the opportunity to go to Honduras with my church. I absolutely fell in love with the world outside of what I was used to. The wild driving, the yelling in Spanish, the surprising amounts of security guards with large guns. All of it just felt like home to me. Then we went into the village and I didn’t think I could be more at home. The children in the villages weren’t inhibited by the social norms that we upheld in the United States. If they wanted to start braiding my hair that was fine with them and fine with me, if they wanted a lap to sit on they would climb all over you until they were comfortable. It didn’t matter what you looked like or what language you spoke you were just immediately friends. I ended up returning to Honduras two more times and each time I found hospitality and an unnatural connection to people that I had never met. Each time I returned I noticed some kind of switch had been flipped, it wasn’t about what I was wearing or how terrible my communication skills were anymore. It was just about being Jesus and experiencing his love in an overwhelming way. It was just about meeting people where they were and being met right where I was. I was most in step with God when I wasn’t in my normal, self-focused day-to-day life. I wasn’t stressed about what people thought about me, I wasn’t stressed about having perfect grades or perfect friends or a perfect life. I was just observing the kingdom, as I should be in every part of my life: at home, at school, at practice. But here in this place that was strangely familiar I just looked and saw the Kingdom and felt God saying hey this is what life should look like. After that I have felt so called to the medical field to be able to meet physical needs and to possibly be a long term missionary in a third world country. But until then I know that I, like every other Christian, have been called to be a long-term missionary exactly where I am.
I found the World Race about a year and a half ago. I was looking for a longer term mission trip because I had never been on a trip longer than a week and wanted to know what it would be like. I looked at trips that were a month long and trips that were years long before I found the World Race. Only a short while after finding the World Race, God placed multiple people in my life who had been on the World Race or who were praying about the Race. I entered into a long season of praying and asking God is this what you want? is this a possibility? In this season I just came before God with my hands open and said whatever you want I want it too, which was really hard because I’m human and mostly prefer my way over God’s way. I continued to pursue it and since being accepted I have just seen God open these doors wide open and affirm my steps in choosing to go on the World Race.
Last summer God moved in mighty ways, and I would like to say I sat back and watched God move and enjoyed every second of his transformation but I would be lying. I’m working on saying the anxiety and depression that overwhelmed me this summer was a gift, because while it was the hardest and most exhausting experience it was the most beautiful and life-giving experience as well. There were days when I would just yell and cry and sit in my room hating God for letting me feel like this. There were times when I was so angry with him that I would look at my bible and feel physically sick and times when I just cried and I couldn’t figure out why I was so sad and so scared. But God met me there every time. He placed specific people in my path to remind me of his beauty and perfect love. He placed people that would challenge me to look to the ultimate comfort, the ultimate peace, the ultimate joy when I was feeling none of those. He never answered my cries to make it easier or make it stop but when I asked to see his face he never failed to show up. No matter how many times I said I was so over my anxiety and depression, God was not done with me. And he never will be done with me, he will just keep transforming me. Through it all his faithfulness was unending, his power never failing, his timing always precise, and his strength made perfect in my weakness. My anxiety and depression are gifts in that they aren’t about me, they are all about God, all about his glory.
