Wow, how do I even put my journey in words without writing a book? I believe God had done an amazing work in my life and it all started when He gave his life for me. I became a believer when I was very young. I can remember praying with my mom and accepting Christ because my older brother was a Christian so I wanted to be one too!
I grew up in a wonderful Christian home. As far back as I can remember, my family talked about missions and supported missionaries. Every night growing up, my Dad would pray with us kids and always ask the Lord to protect our uncle Tom and Aunt Ramonda and cousins, Luke, Abby, and Tyler. I always loved to hear missionaries' stories at church, not really knowing that later on I would seriously consider going myself.
In high school I went on several mission trips to Uganda and Honduras. It was during these trips that God began to work on my heart and show me His heart for the world. I came home from those trips and told my mom that after I graduated college I was going to serve on the mission field, only, I did not know where. Actually, because of my experience and love for Uganda, I kind of always thought I would end up in Africa. My secret dream was to graduate college as a nurse and be apart of medical missions.
In college, my plans for medical missions backfired as I realized I was not cut out for nursing school. So, I decided to switch my major like all awesome college people. I decided to study history and chose to get my teacher certification. After a while, it was awesome because I started to see how much of a teacher I really was and had kind of always been. It was neat to realize how, ultimately, God's plan was underway and He was showing me what I was gifted in.
During my last year in college, while I was student teaching in College Station, I started getting cold feet. I started making excuses about being too young and inexperienced to be able to live half way around the world away from my family. I kept thinking: Ok Kathryn, that was a really neat dream you had in high school, but you're really not cut out for the real thing. The next best thing I decided to do was to just pray about it....and I also filled out a teacher's profile on the MissionTeach website to see if there were any teaching vacancies in international Christian schools anyways. Guess what? There were. There were many and it was overwhelming.
I was contacted by ICSB and after about three weeks of talking and praying I accepted the position. They need me by this fall so, I quickly contacted United World Mission and was appointed March 16, 2011.
