God had always planted seeds of desiring to serve others in my heart which is why I chose to pursue my undergraduate and graduate degrees in social work. I never knew exactly what I wanted to do within the field of social work, but I realized over time the importance of integrating my faith into my future work. While studying for my master’s, I was invited into discipleship with a FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) missionary and a group of wonderful young women. There, I realized my passion for building relationships, talking about healing, and sharing the Gospel, but I was not sure what next step in life would fulfill these desires. In January 2020, I signed up at the last minute for a FOCUS conference called SEEK. The conference sent out emails from their sponsors daily and one of the emails was from an organization called Vagabond Missions, of which I had never heard before. In the email, they offered 15-minute slots to hear more about the organization, so I signed up. It was completely the Holy Spirit that moved me to sign up because I had no intention of doing anything more than hearing about it. However, during the Zoom call my heart was on fire listening to Mark, our recruiting director, talk about the work they do with inner-city high school teens. I knew that this was what I wanted to do next and where the Lord was calling me!
I am looking forward to all the ways the Lord will use the ministry and the teens to change my heart. Many times we think mission is only about bringing souls to Christ, but we forget that at the same time, mission is about the transformation of our own lives to know Christ in a deeper way and to better live out our vocation of love.
If my life were a movie, I would want Patrick Bereit or Annelise Coffin to play the part of me.