We have found that following God is an adventure, and we love adventures! When we got married in May of 2013, we had a sign at the wedding that said “Our adventure begins”. Since then, we have found that many adventures begin throughout different stages of life.
Our first adventure together began in 2007 when I met my future husband during a student exchange trip to Germany. We had both been going to the same small (at the time) private school for over four years; however, we had somehow never met one another before we both went on the exchange trip. We became fast friends, bonding over our love for travel and adventure. Matthew took advantage of the long plane ride back home to ask me out and we have been together ever since. Traveling has been and will always be one of our very favorite things to do. Throughout high school and the first part of college, we knew that we wanted to be involved in ministry, but did not know what area of ministry we should pursue and had never specifically talked about going onto the mission field.
At the Passion conference we attended with friends in 2010, a speaker discussed having a “call into ministry”. Matthew and I were sitting on opposite sides of a very large room at the time. The speaker began asking people to stand if they felt that God wanted them to be involved in various specific areas of ministry. He asked those who felt called to international ministry to stand and, knowing that God had laid that on my heart that night, I stood up. Looking across the room at the few other individuals that had stood, I began to tear up as I saw that Matthew was standing also. This was the spark in our adventures in international missions.
That memory has stayed with us as we have gone through college and began the adventure of entering the workforce. We have travelled intermittently as God has provided, but knew a few months ago that the time for us to begin seeking out opportunities to serve abroad had come. God has so richly blessed us with the adventure to go on the World Race! We will be leaving this September and our eleven month route will take us though Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines. As Matthew graduated with a degree in pastoral ministry and I in early childhood education, we look forward to learning how to serve and bring God’s word to others in so many different cultures and areas of the world. We cannot wait to begin forming relationships with the many ministries we will work alongside so that we may share about their work with those in the states and help provide connections with ministries we are involved with here.
Now we begin our adventure in fundraising. We are very blessed to have this opportunity and are trusting that God will provide the $33,000 that is required for us to be a part of sharing His word around the world. While the amount of funds that are needed is big, we know that our God is bigger. We believe that He has given us a few fundraising ideas that will greatly help us to get towards our goal. More information about those events will be shared soon. We ask that you pray for us as we begin this new season of our lives and if you feel called to support us financially, you can do so by clicking on the “Support Me!” link. We are incredibly grateful for the many individuals God has provided for us as our trusted brothers and sisters in Christ who have been there for us through our lives. We look forward to each adventure with you and we want you to know that God has used each one of you to bless us beyond measure!
