When My Heart Fell In Love...

When I was in the sixth grade, both my mom and my dad (a pilot and a school teacher) left the country to travel to India on medical mission for the first time. We had friends who were missionaries to India, but never before had anyone from our family ventured the that part of the world. Little did we know, that single trip would drastically change our family forever.

I distinctly remember sitting at our dining room table over dinner when my parents returned and my mom looking at my brother, my sister, and I saying, "I want all three of you, sometime in your lifetime, to travel to India and serve." Looking back now, the protective, nurturing mother in her probably wishes she would have never challenged us in such a way!

Spring break of my ninth grade year, i was the final family member to take their first trek to serve short-term in India. My heart was instantly bound to the international church and a people who lived and looked nothing like me. I remember coming back to the States and longing for the next time I got to fly across the world to serve my Jesus there and fellowship with my Indian, Nepali, and Bhutanese brothers and sisters.

My first trip to Chetna Leprosy Colony

Two of my beautiful sisters I had the privilege of meeting

At Grace Children's Home

Finally, during my junior year of high school I had the privilege of traveling back to the place I had grown to love so much. India was all i really knew outside of the US and as far as I was concerned, all I really needed or wanted to ever know. Through that trip, God continued to teach me to love, be a committed follower of Him, and to take big leaps of faith in obedience to Him. Being back felt like home... and I was content with my world consisting of only the US and India...

Back at Grace Children's Home

Beautiful Sisters

A visit back to Chetna

Then... as i sat in my Wednesday night college group as a freshman in college, I heard about a trip to Tanzania that my church was going on. I thought it sounded cool but didn't think anything of it at the time. I heard about it the next Wednesday again and could not seem to get it off my mind after that. I had committed to staying in the States for the next few years as part of getting to go to University of Mobile. Let's just say, I stared to pray about breaking that commitment. I had no idea what the trip was going to be, so I prayed that God make it clear that I was to go on the trip by it being a Medical Mission Trip at the beginning of the summer.

At the end of May 2013, I boarded a plane with 44 other almost-strangers and headed to Tanzania Africa. I had no idea what to expect, no idea how God was about to change my life so drastically once again. Again, I absolutely fell in love and was forever changed.