This last week I have been in Minneapolis, Minnesota with GoCorps at an orientation week for beginning my journey to go abroad to England. I will be leaving for Birmingham, England next November to work with college aged Muslim refugees for two years. I am beyond excited for this opportunity to serve!
My story begins with my parents. My mom (Judith) was born and grew up in England, and my dad (Gene) grew up in Iowa. They met while they were both missionaries in Vienna, Austria. They moved back to the states, got married, had a child, then moved to Athens, Greece to work with Romanian refugees. My younger brother and I were both born in Greece, and I spent the first few years of my life there. We moved back before kindergarden to the Chicago area. There my dad began working with the homeless in a northwest Chicago suburb called Elgin. I believe watching my dad serve and growing up as an Missionary kid started me on the path to also becoming a missionary. While in college I had the opportunity to study abroad in Paris, France. When living there I attended a church that had a homeless ministry that I helped out with. I absolutely fell in love with Paris. The food, the language, and the people were all amazing. When it came time for me to leave I did NOT want to go. In fact I nearly missed my flight because I was dragging my feet so much. As soon as I returned to America I was looking into opportunities to return to Paris. I looked into studying abroad again, I looked into summer options, and as I continued in my college career I began to look into post grad options. I looked into job opportunities, and missions opportunities. All I wanted to do was go back to Paris.
In December of 2015, I had the opportunity to attend a missions conference called Urbana. The week before Urbana I babysat a family friend's kids, and she told me a little bit about GoCorps. She told me she was working the booth and I should stop by. Intrigued by the option to serve and pay off student loans I stopped by. I talked to a representative for awhile and thought the opportunity sounded awesome, but they didn't have a placement in Paris. They gave me a little sheet with basic information that was printed on a runners bib. As a runner I thought it was cool and saved the bib. However, again, since Paris wasn't an option the idea was quickly pushed to the back corner of my mind. I found two other missions organizations that offered Paris as a placement and started the application process with both organizations. However, for one reason or another both options didn't end up worki out. It was around his time I found the little bib sheet from GoCorps. I looked onto the website and filled out an interest form. During this time a lot of little seemingly insignificant things were happening that kept bringing me back to the idea of England. So through a lot of prayer I decided to apply to the university outreach program in Birmingham England.
So here I am at GoCorps training learning what it looks like to fundraise and trust God in the process. I am so excited to start the next step, and so excited to see how God will grow me through this time, and use me in England.