Have you ever entered an event or season of life with a certain expectation and left it with the complete opposite result of that former belief? 

When you’re a little kid, someone always questions, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" There’s the popular options of firefighter, policeman, or cook, but for me it was a forensic scientist. It wasn't a popular choice amongst young people, but I always knew what I wanted to be. After graduating high school, I went to college at Sam Houston State University in the fall of 2018, full of dreams and plans for the next four years of my life.

It’s been exhausting, amazing, hard, and difficult, but I am thankful for every step taken and the people I get to do this with. I am thankful for the people praying and supporting financially. I am thankful for the transformation God is doing in mine and other's lives. I am thankful for God allowing us to be a vessel for Him.

I was living in Tennessee as part of a very small church when my heart began to stir for missions. One day during Sunday school, a missionary came to our church and heard me share how I would love to do foreign missions someday. I was on fire and ready to go! 

GOD IS SO GOOD...Isn’t He? 😁 Since graduation, I had been praying about where God wanted me to go for college. After a few mission trips, God spoke to me about an organization called Youth With a Mission (YWAM). I arrived in January to begin a Discipleship Training School (DTS) here at YWAM Tyler, and it has rocked my world!

Standing with 75,000 people in L.A. at the Azusa Now gathering in 2016 profoundly impacted my life. Our team attended the event during our YWAM Tyler school outreach trip, and it was incredible to see that many people gathered together to lift up the name of Jesus. 

As a dairy farmer raised on a farm in a Mennonite home, I knew the Lord from an early age; my mother led me to Christ. I went to church and participated in youth groups. I even went to Bible school, a Mennonite college in Ohio. The truth was, in the journey of what I thought was trying to find God, I didn't really know Him.

A few years ago, I went to the regularly scheduled Monday morning prayer meeting at the YWAM Tyler campus my husband and I are a part of. This particular meeting was to focus on prayer for the newest School of Strategic Missions (SOSM) on their first day of class. As we prayed, I felt the Lord leading me to Luke 15, which is where Jesus is speaking about: The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin and The Lost Son.  As I pondered this and prayed, I sensed God speaking to me that He wanted to restore what was lost in for these missionary students attending the SOSM. 

Recently we had a couple schools graduate from YWAM Tyler. Here's what the students had to say about their five-month training time!

It was 1983 when I took a job as a clerical worker for an oil company in Houston to fill the time. I had a college degree and aspirations to teach, but after two years of working in the office,  I didn’t want to teach anymore. I also didn’t want to climb the corporate ladder at the oil company. In fact, I had no idea what I wanted to do next! I felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

My life needed redirection

As a burnt out special education teacher, I was desperate for anything different. At this point, I was wondering if maybe I was too desperate.