The Lord has called me to the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington (Go Dawgs!). Despite being away from my home in Southern California, I am excited to bring sunshine to the rainy Seattle area. I am also excited to serve and encounter the students at this university amidst the rigor and stress of school.

I am blessed to have grown up with parents who are Catholic and who taught me many things about the faith. But I also was not taught the many truths of the Church that I know now and my vision of who God was was distorted. I knew my faith was important, and I continued to pursue it as best as I could. In high school, I was shown a glimpse of the great love and mercy God has for me during confession and Eucharistic Adoration. It was there I was hooked, searching ever more for the God who I knew to be true. But the life I was leading was not a place where God could easily be integrated; I cared more about my academic success than God.

God pursued me to UC Berkeley, where I entered college with big dreams of becoming a doctor and hopes for a new start. I still wanted to pursue my faith, and I encountered Catholics tabling during the first week of school handing out rosaries. That night, I went to my first event at Newman and encountered Christ again in the Eucharist. As I kept coming back each week for adoration, I joined a bible study led by a FOCUS missionary, which led me to meet some of my best friends who now are also on mission. We continued to run to Christ together throughout our four years. I learned so much more about my faith in college, was able to grow as a person, and fell more in love with the God who at one time I thought was unreachable. I learned that God desired me, all of me, and He was worth risking everything for. 

If it weren’t for the FOCUS missionaries who walked with me and pursued me in friendship from the beginning of college, I would have never been able to become who I am today, let alone a missionary. Their joyfulness and active pursuit of God showed me how I can also be like them, and I learned how to pray, how to pursue others in authentic friendship, and trust God in all things. Now, I will be able to do the same for other college students who are seeking meaning in life and a home, and I can invite them into the greatest love story ever written.

[My team at UW!]

I am not able to do this mission alone. When I answered the call to join FOCUS, I made the decision to rely on the spiritual and financial support of mission partners to help me through this mission. If you are interested in partnering with me, please let me know of the best way to reach you and I will schedule an appointment. I’d be honored to share this mission with you! You can reach me via phone at (805) 259-7859 or email ([email protected]).