For the past couple of weeks my squad was serving with Samaritan’s Purse in Lake Charles, Louisiana. One of the many ways Samaritan’s Purse serves is working in areas affected by disaster relief. Lake Charles has been hit with two hurricanes and CO-VID all within the past six months. There is a deep need and we got to be right in the middle of it all.  We visited a house one week and met a man named Jim. He wa...

HOW TO BE A SQUAD LEADER What is a squad leader? How do you be a good squad leader?   I ask myself these questions at least ten times a day. And what's interesting is the answer changes depending on who you ask.   If you ask some people (aka me) they'd tell you about the list of responsibilities we were given during training. I keep track of time, make sure people are where they're supposed to be when...

What a time to be alive! The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind of excitement, anxiousness, and anticipation. My discipleship school decided to move classes online, so every morning my house gathers around a laptop and we video chat our classmates and teachers. Work was cancelled until further notice and we're avoiding public places, so life is pretty slow. I am beyond thankful that God has hand-picked ...

In just a couple weeks I am moving to Gainesville, Georgia to attend a 5-month discipleship program called CGA, Center for Global Action. Their goal is to develop character and the ability to lead others emotionally and spiritually.  It's funny because only two months ago, I wasn't sure if I was going to move forward with this program. As I prayed about it, I kept telling God that I would do anything He asked me t...

A BEAUTIFUL MESS - JASON MRAZ  I can't believe in less than 48 hours I'll be back on US soil. What?! A lot of the conversations I've had with my team this week have been about looking back and realizing it was nothing like they thought it would be. The reality is that it's been a lot harder than they expected. You expect cute pictures with kids (see picture below), delicious new foods, and beautiful views. While t...

THE RIOT'S GONE - SANTIGOLD [I've randomly decided all my blogs for this trip will be song titles!! Listen to this guy, it's a good one.] The past two weeks have been absolutely insane. Here's a brief overview of what exactly it entailed...   October 3 Our squad had spent about a month down in the city of Quito, and were traveling to a different ministry up in the mountains to finish off our last week ...

August 24th Just two weeks ago I arrived in Gainesville, Georgia at the Adventures In Missions headquarters. We spent a few days with the leaders of the Semesters trips, training and preparing and praying. Two of my squad mates are also leading Semesters trips, and we got to meet 4 other girls who are leading. We all got to stay in a little house together and wow was it a blast. Lots of games, shared meals, late n...

RETURN It's been about two months since my squad touched down in America after the craziest year of our lives. We immediately dove into the deep end of "I missed you"s and "welcome home"s and "how was it?"s. Adjusting to the reverse-culture-shock wasn't as hard for me as I thought it would be...I jumped right back into hot showers, comfy beds, and air conditioning without much hesitation! I did however notice a de...

LOGISTICS I have LOVED the ministry in South America, but a huge part of my personal experience on the race has to do with my job on the squad.  My role on the squad is officially “Logistics Coordinator.” My squad mate Tyler is my co-leader, and we’re basically the tour guides of the squad. We plan and lead all the travel days for the squad - buses, trains, songtaews, vans, and planes - you name it, we’ve b...

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS In Asia, one of my favorite ministry memories was befriending Yamin! She was a student at the English club we taught at, and I connected with her and decided to try to build a relationship with her!  The first time we hung out, she took me and my teammates to this huge golden pagoda. It’s a Buddhist temple made of a bunch of real gold. She even brought me a skirt that I could wear (you ar...