By God’s grace, He allowed me to be born as the oldest child of Bible-Believing, Christian parents in Charleston, West Virginia. From a young age I had the opportunity to attend church at Bible Center Church for Sunday School, Sunday Services and also the Wednesday Night AWANA program.
It was at that AWANA program, one evening when I was 5, that I heard the gospel being preached. That night I went home from church and began to ask my dad about what I had been taught, and then kneeling next to my bed that night, I accepted Christ as my Savior.
I didn’t always get the opportunity to go to church, my mother became quite ill and for much of my childhood, our weekends were spent visiting her in hospitals hours away from home, or caring for her at home in the times between hospital stays. Because of that, God became very precious to me, and church became my safe haven. I would do anything I could to get there and be involved. As I entered my teenage years I was then old enough to walk to my church, so I began to attend and serve regularly, working in the AWANA program as a leader in training, participating in the teen music ministry and going on two missions trips.
During my freshman year of high school, my mother passed away and after that time, my family was able to start attending church regularly with me again. During my senior year my family moved to Midland, MI where I attended Midland Baptist Church, participating in the youth group and working in the bus ministry. The next year I headed off to Bible College where I got a degree in Secondary Education, purely for the training in working with children and teenagers in all aspects of life.
After college, I went back to Midland Baptist where I have served for the last 10 years, while being employed both in the secular workforce and while being on full time staff at Camp CoBeAc for 3 of those years. At Camp CoBeAc God allowed me the experience of aiding the director in starting a Bible Institute from the ground up, as well as working with rental groups and coordinating the teen leadership camp. While at Midland Baptist, God has allowed me to learn and serve by working in the children’s, youth and bus ministries; leading Bible studies; coordinating and helping run several vacation Bible Schools and youth conferences; and going on a missions trip to Cieneguilla Peru.
It was during that trip to Cieneguilla, Peru that God began to stir my heart for missions. About 20 of our teens and singles had gone down to Peru to work with the Kennedy family for 10 days, helping at their children’s home, and sharing the gospel in schools and shanty-towns throughout the region. My heart was broken on that trip. God allowed us to see at least 118 people saved during that trip, but most of them lived in shanty towns below the poverty line. They had no transportation, and no church in travelling distance save the Catholic church. We shared the gospel with them, but could provide no way for them to grow. On day 7 of that trip, Mike Kennedy looked directly at me and said he believed I needed to be there working with him and his family in Cieneguilla. I wrote in my journal night, that one day I wanted to go back and work there, but I knew it wasn’t the right time.
In the years since then, the Kennedy’s, their ministries, and the people in the areas just beyond their ministries have continued to burden my heart, never far from my thoughts or mind. I continued to serve and to learn everything I could in the ministry, wondering if one day God would allow me to go back; if He would allow me to help those people, to be His ambassador to them.
In May of 2015, during the Missions Revival at our church, where Mike Kennedy was the speaker, I knew it was time, and began making the preparations to go to Peru as a missionary with the full support of my pastor and church.
God is good! I know that with all my heart and would never ask Him to change any of the events of my past. Because of those events, easy and hard (I can’t call them bad because they all work together for good!) God gave me a passion for Him, a passion to serve, and a passion to make sure others can find their safe haven and a place to run in Him. I have no doubt that God has used each event, and each opportunity for service and training as preparation to serve in the wide open and very hungry field of Peru.
