My name is William Wright. My friends and Family call me Will. I am 18 years old, but I will turn 19 in January just before my World Race Semester trip to India and Nepal. I am a home school high school graduate from Fredericksburg Virginia. I took high school classes as part of a Christian home school group taught by teachers who have either taught high school or college in the past. The program was called Ad Astra which is Latin for “to the stars”. I plan to go to college next fall, hopefully Liberty University. I am still deciding on my major. Currently I work at an old historic farm where I help with weddings and events as well as general farm work.
I am a member of a non-denominational Christian church called Stafford Crossing Community Church. I volunteer on the tech team doing lighting for both Sunday morning services and Sunday evening youth events. I have been in church my whole life. Even before I was born, I was attending church. My mom and dad were both a part of the praise and worship team at the church where they met. My mom sang in the band while she was pregnant with me. When I was born, she sang praise and worship songs as she rocked me to sleep instead of lullabies. When we lived in Colorado, my dad used to hold me in the choir risers during Sunday morning choir warmups. I remember being in the big Christmas play, Wonderland. I was baptized at my current church Stafford Crossing because this is where my faith came alive and became personal with the help of my youth pastor and mentor Joe Panteleo.
It wasn’t until I went on my first mission trip that I started to really feel like I belonged at my current church. That trip was a construction trip to Jamaica. It changed my life! My dad and I went there with a team of men from my church to help build facilities and do construction for a local church and for Teen Challenge Jamaica. I have been on two soccer mission trips as well, but sports are not my area of excellence. I enjoyed the Jamaica trips even though they were very hard physically because of the sense of accomplishment and the relationships we built with local people who wanted us there.
Sometimes when you grow up in a home of faith where you are always in church you feel like your story isn’t very exciting to share. But it is your story and that is what God calls us to do. Share your story. HIS story working in your life. I am going on this trip so that I have a chance not only to share the good new of what God is doing in my life and the life of my family but also to re center my life and refocus on God before I start my college journey. I pray that as I share God with others that He would lead me and give me direction.
