Everyone has a story to tell and all of them are different. Some are filled with happiness and few trials while others are full of sorrow and tribulations. Some start out happy and end in tears. Some are full of surprises both good and bad. For me, my story is full of the finger prints of God. Being raised in a God filled home has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. Now I’m not trying to sound like I am boasting or being prideful. It just so happens that both of my parents love God with all of their hearts and have taught me and my siblings to do the same. I am very grateful that they did because I probably would not be serving God if they hadn’t. I won’t get into my childhood years in this post but I will share the beginning of this chapter of my life.

For those of you that don’t know, my journey started back in 2010 on my first mission trip. That trip was the seed of my calling to being a missionary. My first ever mission trip was to the Grand Canyon with my youth group and church family of that time. I went to the Grand Canyon to minister to the people of the Havasupai tribe. Boy! Was that ever an eye opener. The people there welcomed us in and we held a week long vacation bible school program for their children. My heart broke for the children of the Havasupai. I was still open to going on other mission trips. While I was in the Grand Canyon, the older of my two younger brothers (Ben) went on a different mission trip. He was with the youth group from our home church. His trip was to the Navajo Brethren in Christ Mission in New Mexico. My brother helped with their bible school program and was also able to stay an extra week since our Aunt and Uncle from Kentucky were arriving the following week to do a work project. He fell in love with the Mission and wanted to go back the following year. I decided that I wanted to go along with him to see what this Navajo Mission was all about.

At this point I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had a year before I graduated High School and I was searching for what God wanted me to do. I already knew that I wanted to be a missionary because that calling was placed on my heart at a very early age. I just didn’t know where I was going to end up. So in June of 2011, my brother and I set out on our month long adventure to the Navajo Reservation to work at the Navajo Brethren in Christ Mission. We arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico and met with the directors of the Mission. Their names are Duane and Diane. As we drove to the Mission, I did some sleeping and when I woke up I was amazed at how much the landscape had changed in two and a half hours. Duane and Diane showed us where we were going to be staying. It is a more traditional house called the Adobe House. It has a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. The kitchen and the bedroom are about the same size and the bathroom is right in the middle of the house. You have to walk through the bathroom to get to the kitchen and vise versa. Duane and Diane gave us a couple of hours to settle in and refresh ourselves before sitting down to go over orientation. They told us all about the mission and gave Ben and I guild lines to follow.

After orientation, Ben and I went back to the adobe house for the evening. About an hour or so later there was a knock on our door. It was our soon to be close friends, Jr. and Rephiaih. We had many evenings of campfires and good food. During the day, Ben, Rephiaih, and Jr. worked around the mission. I worked in the office doing little things for Diane so that she was able to focus on other things. Ben and I also helped with the bible school teams that came to the Mission. One of the teams that came took Ben and myself under their wing and I was finally able to go site seeing. We went to the top of the Mesa and to Angle’s Peak. While we were at Angel’s Peak I felt the call to come back and work among the Navajo. More specifically, to work at the Mission. I said, “Ok God. My life is yours.” I told Duane and Diane about what had happened at Angel’s Peak. I said to them, “I will be back. I don’t know when or how or what I’ll be doing, but I will be back.” They said “Ok.” In no time at all it was time to leave. Duane and Diane took Ben and I to the airport and we said a tearful goodbye.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2013 and Diane calls my mom and says “Hey, we have a position opening up here at the school here on our campus. The current teacher is getting married and leaving at the end of the school year. Could you spread the word that we need a teacher?” Mom does, and of course she tells me about it too. At that point I had almost stopped focusing on what God wanted me to do and was focusing more on what I wanted to do. When mom told me what Diane had said my thoughts were along the line of “Well, that would get me out to the Mission but is teaching what I want to do?” The answer to that for the past three years has been yes. I believe that Diane called again a couple of weeks later saying that no one had called or emailed her about the position. Let me tell you what was happening with me during that time in-between the times Diane called. After Diane had called the first time and I had had my reservations about being a teacher, I turned back to God. He helped me discover that teaching is what he wants me to do. Now back to Diane’s second phone call. One of the other things she had said when she called was that whenever she prayed or thought about the school position, my name came to her mind. Wow! Did that ever blow me away! After some more prayer and sitting to God, I called Diane up and asked her all about the school and what I would need to do in order for me to come to the Mission. One of the things I needed to do was raise my own financial support since woking at the school doesn’t pay very much at all. I told Diane that I would need to wait for some more confirmation before I would be able to say whether or not I could be the next teacher.

That evening I went into work and my mom happened to stop in to buy some groceries. I was working at the local grocery store and I had been working in the Deli that evening. Mom came up to the counter and said, “You have a phone call to make.” I said, “Who am I supposed to call?” mom said, “You need to call Diane and say you can move to New Mexico because you have your first pledge of support.” I was completely stunned. I hadn’t expected God to confirm my going so quickly.  I called Diane up the next day and told her the good news and asked if the position was still open. She said yes but I would need to move to the Mission as soon as possible so that the teacher could train me in the school procedures. And so the date was set for Saturday, March 2, 2013 for me to arrive at the Mission. Before moving, I had to buy a few things and pack up my room since I needed to furnish my new dwelling place. Many people gave items to me to begin setting up house keeping. I was and still am very grateful to the people who helped me in any way.

It soon came to the time for me to leave home and begin the journey to New Mexico. My two younger bothers and my mom drove me out to New Mexico. It was a sad morning when we left. Not only was I leaving the area I had lived in for 14 years but my Dad was not able to go along on the trip because of work. This made leaving home very hard because I knew that it would be a long while before I could hug my Dad again. On the way to the Mission, we stopped at Asbury University in Kentucky to visit with my older sister. It was great to see Abi and hang out with her for a little while. We then continued our trip and stopped overnight at our Aunt’s house. The next day we met with two cousins along the way. We stopped in Arkansas the second night. On the third day we continued on I-40 west and met up with Duane and Diane’s daughter and grandson for supper in Amarillo. We had a great time together. After having a delicious supper with Dawn and Mason, we kept on going and stopped in Albuquerque for the night. We slept in the next day as we only had two and a half hours drive to go. We arrived at the mission around 2 in the afternoon. As we were driving in, I knew I was home.

Since I moved to the Mission, there have been times where I have doubted whether or not being a teacher was the right thing to do. When ever I have those thoughts and feelings, I feel God surrounding me and I am reassured that this is where he wants me. It hasn’t been easy to step out in faith and say “Ok God, I am yours to lead.” There have been many bumps along the way but I am able to see God in each step along this path. I am excited to see what else God has for me in the near future.