I was raised in doing mission work. My parents are what started this in my family. When I was 8 my parents left me with my (much older) sister so they could work in an orphanage in Russia. Ever since they came back from that trip, they were dead set that I needed to experience in this area. It started out serving dinner to the homeless once a week. Then, when I was 12, it was sending me on one week mission trips with my church or school all over the country and once even to Costa Rica.

In the summer of 2008 my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer. The outlook didn’t look good and they only gave her 6 months to live. My mom was never one to give up. Not only did she pass six months she made it another 18 months. My mom said that for every 6 months she lived she was going to do some sort of mission project or trip. She raised money for food shelters, Dress for Success (a charity that takes nicer clothes so women can shop there and get outfits for work and interviews at good prices), and she even lead a trip to New Orleans to hurricane recovery. She was such an inspiration to me and watching her do that made a big impact on me and my view or sickness and pain.

My mom passed away September 2010. When that happened, something clicked in my head. I knew that I wanted to take after her example and help people more actively than I had before. Part of that was I wanted to spend my summer working somewhere in the world. That is when I remembered my middle school nurse, Sister Reeves. She was an older woman who was a nun and also a registered nurse. Every summer she would take a trip to Uganda and work in an orphanage helping with the medical care of the children. She was one of my favourite teachers in middle school and her stories always stuck with me. It was then that I decided I wanted to spend the summer working in Uganda.

I feel that my conclusion to do this trip was sort of like a puzzle that God gave me. He gave all the pieces and wanted me to work out what it meant. I prayed for a while for God to give me something to change my life because it felt like something needed to change after my mom passed. He gave me everything I needed; I just needed to find it.