My Story

Show me your ways, Lord,

teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me,

for you are God my Savior,

and my hope is in you all day long.

Psalm 25:4-5

In all things, I've asked God to show me, teach me and guide me. Here are some of the ways and places He's done that:

This California girl never thought she would have the opportunity to travel all over the world. But when a picture of a friend sitting on a camel in front of the pyramids in Egypt appeared on her blog, a lightbulb went off in my head. I knew I wanted to do that.

Fast forward to sophomore year at Pepperdine University...I'm studying overseas in London, England. I get to travel to Egypt and take the same picture. But surprisingly, seeing the pyramids wasn’t the most memorable thing for me in Egypt.

View from the hill

After finishing lunch at a hotel in Cairo, I walked around the hotel garden, which had a small hill. And as I walked up the hill, the call to prayer started sounding all around me. By the time I reached the top, it had me totally surrounded. And as I stood there, surveying a city of 17 million people, I thought of how sad it was that so many of these people did not know the love of God. Then, I thought how much I wanted to know some of these people. To live among them, to form relationships, to join a community. I didn’t want to just drop the Gospel in their lives or wear a t-shirt that proclaimed what I thought - I wanted to grow and share life with people because the world is too big for me but not too big for God.

When I returned to London, classes continued as normal, but when our art professor asked us about our trip, “Well, what did you all think of Egypt?" Most people groaned. I went, “It was great! I loved it!" She smiled at me and said to the rest of the class with a twinkle in her eye, “So you wouldn’t want to live and teach there for a year as I did?" More groans from them, but a "YES, PLEASE!" from me. I thought that sounded like the best thing in the world.

Do I want to teach overseas??

Fast-forward through the rest of my time at Pepperdine. I complete my degree in English and my Single-Subject Teaching Credential with student teaching, so I'm all set to teach middle school or high school English in California. But instead, I deliberate between accepting a teaching position Singapore and waiting to hear if I'm offered a grant with Fulbright Korea to teach high school English in South Korea for a year. Turning down Signapore was difficult without knowing if Korea would pan out, but godly counsel and peace guided my decision that became wisdom when I was offered a grant to Korea.

My one year turned into three before I knew it. I loved working with Korean high school students and I was learning so much by living as an expat. God provided a good church and great friends for me. I was incredibly fulfilled where God had called me in Korea.

Surveying my school in Korea

But Fulbright grants have a three year limit, so I had to discern where God was calling me to next. I had no idea where that was, but I knew it was somewhere overseas, so I applied in many different places and hoped that God would make His will clear. After a while, there were two front runners: an EFL position in the Middle East and a high school English opening with the Network of International Christian Schools (NICS) in Bolivia.

The two positions were COMPLETELY different, but as I talked to the people at NICS, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time: the desire to work there. Thus far, I'd only been trying to see what was available, but this was different. The director of the school said that each person working at the school felt they had been distinctly called to work there, even it wasn't something they expected or initially looked for. With that in mind, I kept praying. That feeling of wanting to be a part of HIS never went away.

One Two years into teaching there, it still hasn't.

Wacky Nerd Day: because what other job would let me dress like this?