dream come true

I am so excited to share this entire process with you, but I feel like it’s only right that we start from the beginning. So here is my attempt at summarizing where my heart for global missions and my passion for development aid started! 

Jesus introduced me to global missions during my freshman year of college through a mission trip with my college ministry. I had no idea what that meant but I wanted in. Then March of 2020 happened, and lots changed, and plans were canceled. Since then I knew I wanted to serve overseas but it wasn’t until the summer after my junior year that it happened. I randomly learned about Arise Africa and immediately fell in love with their mission. Arise seeks to meet children’s needs by providing quality education, serving one hot meal a day (which for many this is their only meal a day), medical care, discipleship opportunities, and daily bible classes. Their hope is that through meeting a child’s physical needs, their spiritual needs can be met as well. All I knew was I had to take part in some capacity, so I applied to be an intern.

Many skipped details later, I began preparing to spend one month in Lusaka, Zambia to intern with Arise in the summer of 2022. A couple days before leaving, I started to wonder if God was going to call me overseas after I graduated. That’s a really crazy thought for someone who had never served or spent an extended period of time overseas - but God knew what He was doing. 

While I was in Lusaka, I spent a lot of time in Arise’s three schools building the most special relationships with staff and students. From helping students write letters to their sponsors, to learning what communication looked like, how finances worked, and how decisions were made in order to run an international non-profit, I knew I wanted to take part in what Jesus was doing through Arise. Lusaka started to feel a lot like home to me even though I was over 8,000 miles away from College Station. My time there challenged me in so many ways and changed the way I viewed life. 

Now here’s where the moving parts begin. I started my senior year, began thinking about post-grad plans, and would have never dreamed that God was going to make a way for something this unexpected. Once I got back to the states I wrote an email to the Executive Director thanking her, sharing what I learned, and wanting to find ways to stay involved. A couple months later, I sent her another email asking to have a conversation to learn from her. In the meantime, I did not stop talking about how passionate I am and how badly I believe in the mission of Arise with my mentor. On one of these occasions she suggested that during this meeting I should ASK to move to Zambia and work with Arise. I didn’t know that was a thing you could do, but I did it… and it worked? Still shocked about that. 

Now here I am, a month and a half away from moving across the world and I cannot stop reflecting on how Jesus has been so faithful to me over and over and over again. My prayer is that this little blog will be a space for me to share my heart with you, continue to reflect on what Jesus is doing, and bring you along with me!

But for now, I need prayers and a whole lot of them. In full transparency, this is really scary and really hard, but I’m choosing to trust Jesus. Please be praying for God to continue to make Himself known in the midst of a lot of change, for Him to continue preparing my heart for what's ahead, and for the relationships I get to start and continue building with the people in Lusaka.

the first friend I made in Lusaka!