“Purpose makes it seem like I had this road map for my life that I have executed flawlessly, purposefully. Nothing could be farther from my experience.”

The internship turned into a full-time position that allowed me to serve God by pouring into kids, summer staff, and retreat leaders and guests. This position later evolved to a marketing and communications role that challenged me to grow and learn. It also gave me the huge blessing of working with countless churches and being able to share my story of how summer camp impacted my life and encouraging parents to send their own children.

“I’ve made it,” I thought. This is clearly my purpose. I was able to live into my faith professionally by encouraging and creating environments for others to grow closer to Him. There was even a day where my job was strapping a GoPro to my head to go for a 3-mile hike to jump into a waterfall for an upcoming promotional video. I loved working at camp, but unbeknownst to me, that was not God’s ultimate plan for my life. That was His plan for that season of my life. My life’s timeline continued like this:

• Lead a wonderful group of girls in small group beginning in their Freshman year of high school.
• Decide to chaperone on my church’s international mission trip with them for their Senior year. Fundraise for the full amount.
• Surprise! My second child is now due to be born in the fall.
• Can’t go on the mission trip because the insurance won’t cover me. Mission funds sit in an account for me for a future date.
• 2-years later, an all adult mission trip is planned and the dates miraculously don’t conflict with either my husband’s fire department schedule nor my camp duties.
• Get on a plane to Guatemala for a trip that will change the course of my life. I served alongside the most amazing people and learned about a culture far from my own. This was also the first place I had travelled where I was unable to drink the water without filtering it first.
• 2-months later, an email arrives from an organization called Water of Life looking for a Communications Director. Think it’s too coincidental to overlook and send my resume in.
• 2-weeks later, have a new job at Water of Life. Feel like I’m drinking from a firehose for the first several months trying to learn everything I can about the world water crisis, effective evangelism, and all of the people we serve.
• 6-months later, on a plane to West Africa to meet the pastors, drill crews, and villagers in person. That’s a post in itself, but to summarize – life-changing experience.
• 6-months after that, on a plane to India where I experience the first moment of my entire life that leaves me unable to breath – seeing hundreds of children’s faces, all rescued from slavery in the rock quarries of India.
• 2-years later, named by the board as the new CEO of Set Free.

I still have days where I look up and wonder, how the heck did I get here? But I can also see God’s hand leading every step of the way. If you’re sitting here struggling to answer your own version of what am I doing here? How can my life make an impact? Just take a moment to breathe. Be in prayer. Connect with our Creator. And take a lot of that pressure off yourself. You don’t have to figure it all out right now. Heck, you don’t have to figure it all out to get started. What are you passionate about? Who is already doing that? Once you answer those two questions – how can you help them? Maybe it is a full-time job. More likely, can you volunteer? Can you be an advocate? Can you be a donor? Just take the first step. In my experience, God will lead the way.