My Bio

So I guess I’m going to use this space to tell you a little more about myself.

First of all, I am the youngest child in a family of seven kids. I’ve lived and grown up in a small town called Marion, in upstate New York. I was homeschooled by my mom until the fifth grade, when I started going to public school. A lot of my childhood memories are about playing outside on our huge property and playing all sorts of games in our old hay-barn. My parents tell me that I was very talkative as a child, even though that’s really hard for me to imagine today. I’m definitely not an “outgoing” person, but I still like to talk with people and have meaningful conversations. I don’t have tons of friends, but I like my friendships to be lasting and meaningful.

Around the time I started going to public school, I also attended a summer camp called Circle C Ranch for the very first time. I continued to go as a camper, until the summer after 9^th grade, when I started working their instead. This coming summer (2008) will be the first summer where I won’t be able to work at this camp, which I am very sad to have to do. But, needless to say, this camp has had a great impact on my life. Not only was it the place where I first committed my life to Christ, but it is also one of the few places that has continued to challenge me in the depth and meaning of my walk with Christ. I wish I could tell all there is to say about this camp, but if you are interested then you’ll just have to ask sometime.

…back again to when I started public school… I think it took me several years to really start to apply what I was learning from camp and church into my daily life. I knew and believed that I was saved, but didn’t really know how it was supposed to change my life. I was making all the outward signs of religion and not really changing anything on the inside. I became a member of the church and got baptized and even got involved with the youth group, but I think I knew somewhere deep down that I hadn’t surrendered everything to God. I was still following the crowd, and my own aims and desires. My years in high school had a lot of ups and downs, but for the most part I was still growing as a Christian. Especially when I started working at Circle C, I had the opportunity to live with believers much more mature in faith and be challenged to live likewise. I soaked up my time at camp like a sponge, just hoping to retain even a little bit of the faith of those believers. I wanted to live that life that “shined like stars” in a world full of darkness.

But we are all creatures of habit, and change did not come as easily as I’d hoped. Time and time again I would be disappointed in myself for breaking promises and falling into old habits. My senior year would have looked amazing from a worldly perspective. I finished my years at Marion as a Valedictorian and star athlete, breaking the school record in the outdoor mile and indoor 2 mile. I was the typical “good kid” in my high school. But I think a lot of how I was living then was mostly just a cover-up for a serious lack of depth within. I could do all sorts of things to make myself look good, but on the inside, I still needed(and continue to need) a lot of work.

So then I finally get to college. Maybe I’ll talk about how I chose Taylor University another time, that’s an interesting story. But basically I came to Taylor with the intention of getting a degree in mathematics and physics. I thought that college was going to be easy work for me, and I could finally start to accomplish something. I signed up for University Physics I and Calculus III, and I also planned on running everyday and getting serious about my devotions too. In my mind college would be the time in life to finally straighten everything out and then eventually settle down into a nice peaceful life.

Oh boy was I in for a surprise!

Praise be to God for having much greater plans that I could have ever imagined! Basically I found out a lot about my inward weaknesses, and God has slowly and surely been working on making me whole again. I’ve begun to learn how little I can actually accomplish on my own, and so I continue to point to God’s grace and love in pursuing my wandering heart.

I was also surprised to learn that perhaps God had different plans than what I intended to do with my time at Taylor. I had wanted to study math and physics just for the sake of learning, and knowing a lot. I thought I might one day become a professor and have a nice little family and “settle down” somewhere quiet. But God opened my eyes and my heart to something much more precious to Him. I don’t quite know why, but I think that God revealed to me a little piece of His heart, as if to say: “this is what makes me hurt, and this is what I long for most.” God opened my heart to the need for missions, and the need for someone to share with those most in need. The more I began to think about it, the more convinced I became, that this is what I was made for. I want to share with others and to give them a little seed of the hope and joy that I have found from Christ.

I still don’t know what I plan to do with the rest of my life, but I think I might eventually become a math teacher, either in a foreign missions field, or perhaps in an inner-city missions program somewhere. Basically it doesn’t matter to me where I end up, so long as I know I am in God’s will for my life. I know that He knows what’s best for me. I think that it’s sad sometimes when Christians worry too much about the details of life and forget the bigger picture of what we’re here to do. I believe it’s most important to keep the “bigger picture” in mind. One can climb the ladder of success as high and as fast as possible, but it doesn’t do any good at all if your ladder is on the wrong building.