I remember sitting in my freshman world geography class, watching documentaries every week about different places around the world, and falling absolutely in love with it. Those documentaries fascinated me more than anything, the people and cultures were so beautiful, and I desperately needed to go and experience it. I like to believe that this was when I decided I wanted to see this world, little did I know that this was only the beginning of what God had in store for me. At the time, I was going to New Hope Christian church and every summer, they took a mission trip to New York City, and every summer, I would get so jealous because I wanted to go. Finally, my junior year, I decided that it was my time to go, and boy did it change my life forever. I had never been to New York City, or on a mission trip, so it was all so new to me. I’ll never forget the way I felt when we got there and was told what we would be doing for the week. I freaked out, I didn’t want to do it, I wanted to tour New York City, not help homeless people (haha good thing I don’t jump to conclusions). I’ll never forget the next day either, we went to The Bowie Mission and first cooked the food, then served it to anyone who wanted to come. The look on their faces blew my mind, they weren’t sad, they were so happy, and they were so genuinely grateful. I think that was the first time I’ve seen and felt genuine gratitude. Just those couple of hours changed my entire perspective on life. The rest of the week turned into nothing but happiness and joy as we continued to work with homeless people, and it’s funny because when I think about the trip, I don’t think about all of the touristy things that we did, it’s peoples smiling faces that I remember most. When I got home, I decided that I wanted to continue to go on mission trips, so the next summer (my senior year), I paid my way to stay in Memphis and serve the community.
It was also my senior year when I found out about The World Race. Senior year was a constant struggle of what my next step was going to be, I wasn’t ready for college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, all I knew was that I wanted to continue to serve God, so when I heard about the opportunity for The World Race, I took it. I researched it, then I asked my mom about it, and she turned me down immediately. I was crushed, but I listened and decided to go to college. While in college, I had the opportunity to go to Mexico and build water systems. I prayed and prayed that if I was supposed to be a missionary, this trip would show me, and that’s exactly what God did. While in Mexico, I found out that kids with special needs don’t get to go to school and in that moment I decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life building schools for them in countries where they don’t get education. I went into my sophomore year knowing what I wanted to do, but not knowing how to get there. As 2018 approached, I prayed that the year would be filled with me growing closer to God and he once again answered my prayer. I had a thought a couple of weeks ago to try and go on The World Race again. I was terrified of what my mom would say, but I really believed that this was something I needed to do. I believed that I needed to put my life on hold and go and live completely and totally for God for 9 months, and sure enough, she said yes! So here I am, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I know that I am supposed to do this, and I’m excited to see what God has planned for me as I go through this new journey.
