This year begins my second year serving at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign! The Lord was abundantly generous this past year and offered many opportunities for me to serve the nearly 50,000 students on campus! Here is to another year of receiving all that He has to offer.

Meet the Team: Jenna, Ryan, Me, Simon, Chanelle, Patrick, Beth

I was incredibly blessed to have grown up in a Catholic environment, attending Catholic grade school and high school as well as the local high school youth group! Though I had some relatively profound experiences with Him throughout that time, as I prepared for undergrad at the University of Missouri-Columbia (Mizzou) I had no intention of continuing to make the faith a priority. Despite my best efforts, the first Sunday of college I found myself at the 8pm student mass. After receiving Christ in the Eucharist, I noticed another student praying reverently. I had never seen someone pray that way before and was cut to the heart. After mass, I walked up to her and stated simply “I want to learn how to pray like that. Can you teach me?”. In the years following this simple moment of grace, the Lord pursued my heart with reckless abandon displaying the stability, security, and safety of His love in a variety of ways including bible study, mission trips, discipleship, and even ordinary moments.

If I have come to know anything about the Lord it is that He has more love to give than we can possibly imagine. He desires all people to know Him, not for His sake but for theirs! I am humbled to take part in His invitation to these souls and trust that many people will become fully alive as a response!

When Jesus tells Peter to “cast his net on the other side of the boat” in Luke 5, the catch of fish was so big that “others had to come help him.” Similarly, when God calls someone “to be catching men” He never calls that person by himself. He calls others to help him. By spiritually and/or financially supporting me on mission, Jesus wants to stretch your own nets toward Him, so that you too can experience the huge catch of joy He offers. I would be honored to serve alongside you and have you a part of my team!