So who is Sarah Pierce?
Great question.
I teach math and science to 7th and 8th graders. I love junior high because they are old enough to talk about real things, but still young enough that they love to play. (You should see our quote walls!)
In my free time, write YA novels. I have one book that was published on Amazon for 3 years, and another five or six in the works. I am currently working on a trilogy. I hope to have it ready to start the publishing process by the close of the race.
I’ve been playing piano for 21 years, then taught myself guitar and ukulele in college (piano is not the most travel-friendly instrument). I also sing. I love worshipping and leading worship (both vocal and musical).
I love swimming. I will take any opportunity to swim in a body of water, especially if its an ocean. I feel most at home in the water.
I am a decent cook and a pretty good baker. I love to make things, especially when I am planning on sharing them with others or bringing people together over a meal. I love the challenge of figuring out how to “make do” without ingredients that I can easily find back home. I have a book called “The Science of Cooking” by Harold McGee and it’s possibly one of my favorite things because it combines cooking and chemistry.
I love card games. Hearts. Spades. Shanghai Rummy, Hand and Foot, Golf, King-Thief, Corte, Spicy Uno, and especially Nertz (Dutch Blitz). I always carry at least 2 decks of cards on my person because you never know when you’ll need to pull them out to play.
When I was younger, my family lived in Germany for three years. As a result, I love experiencing new cultures. I have hiked through the jungles of Indonesia, worked as an artist-in-residence in Morocco, and facilitated a beach camp in Albania. Traveling and serving God is really a marriage of the best of both worlds for me, and I cannot wait to continue doing that with Expedition.
I come from a very close family that I love dearly. In the same breath, I have to mention my friends, who are essentially my second family. I would not be who I am today without each of them.
I am a child of God, who strives to live every day under the control of the Holy Spirit. God does not condemn me for things I have done against his law (sin), but instead freely offers grace and mercy by Jesus’ death on the cross. Because of Jesus’ death, I am free, loved, and forgiven. I am no longer under the penalty of death because of my sin, but received life because of Jesus’ righteousness.
I was created with unique gifts and abilities that God intends to use to fulfill the good work that he started in me. What is that good work? I don’t know… fully. But I do have an idea that it has something to do with helping others grow, and making His Name known among the nations.
I will be most fulfilled when I am living out my calling: to help others grow. This is expressed through the things I do, like teaching and writing, but I am not bound by them. Some time ago, God gave me a segment of a verse that I repeat here:
“I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
I thought the verse was from Acts 13:47, but Paul is quoting Isaiah 49:6. Isaiah is my favorite book of the Bible, since it is all about our identity, nested within God’s larger plan of salvation for the ends of the earth.
