I was born on March 5th 1980 in Waterloo, Iowa. When I was five years old we had moved to New York, and my parents had separated. Both of my parents were seeking God. My dad had been taking my brother and me to a Baptist church in Syracuse. I remember the night I was saved. Through a simple alter call prayer, and the presentation of the wordless book, the pastor’s wife helped me understand the gospel and I asked God to forgive my sins and come into my life and be Lord.
In 1985 my mom found La Fayette Alliance Church (http://www.lafayettealliance.org/), which is still my home and sending church today 25 years later. The people of the church become became our family. I was in Awana- the children’s mid-week club, children’s choir, musicals, and attended Sunday school.
At age 11, while I was a camper attending a summer youth camp at Delta Lake Bible Conference Center (http://www.deltalake.org/), the Christian and Missionary Alliance Camp in Rome, New York, I heard the call from God to give my life to full-time Christian service as a missionary in a foreign country. Though I was a child, I committed my life to be a missionary. I became involved in the La Fayette Alliance youth group, as well as Syracuse Alliance youth group. I attended La Fayette public schools where I was very involved in high school sports, dramas, music, and art programs. My senior year of high school I was able to attend and graduate from a private school, Faith Heritage, which was made possible because someone from my church offered to pay the tuition. That was a good but humbling year. That year God started the process of refining my character.
The next four and a half years I attended Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesotahttp(www.nwc.edu/)
That was a great time of hearing from God, as he refined my character. I graduated in December 2003 with a Bachelors of Science in Visual Art Education K-12 and Bible. I knew God was still calling me to be a missionary over seas, so I looked for where I could teach. I found Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center (http://www.scclc.org/) which is an ACSI school, (Association of Christian Schools International) (http://www.acsi.org/) In order to work/ volunteer there I needed to go through a mission, and I was steered toward South America Mission, SAM (http://www.southamericamission.org/) I applied to and was accepted to become a missionary with S.A.M. in May of 2004. In August that year I was in Santa Cruz, Bolivia as the Art teacher for Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center for two years. In June of 2006. I came back to the States and prayed about what God would have me do, where He would have me go, whether to attend Seminary or return to Bolivia. During this time I understood that He was calling me to step out in faith and return to Bolivia with South America Mission, and commit to four more years. I returned to Bolivia in January 2007 and stayed basically 2 and a half more years. I finished my fifth school year in May 2009, and then returned to the States. As I finished that school year, God was calling me to reach out to a village in eastern Bolivia called San Fernando! I have been in the States from June 2009 until April 2010 to raise support to return to Bolivia, yet not to Santa Cruz, but rather to San Fernando to encourage and teach the few Christians of the village and work with them to create outreach ministries to reach their village for Christ. In these last 10 months God has continued to form my character, Philippians 2:1-11, to have the same attitude of Christ. I pray that in San Fernando I would love the people, by being a servant. Jesus came to serve.
