I’m so excited to be serving at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona! #GoLumberjacks!!

OUR TEAM (from left to right): Grace, Grace (yes, we have two Graces hehe… you could say our team is “full of grace” 😉 ), Olivia, Pete, & Mark!

The human heart desperately longs to be seen, known, and loved. 

I did not know how true this was until my freshman year of college, when I was with a friend on a college campus that was not our own. As we were walking down the sidewalk, we noticed that no one was acknowledging each other, not even in the slightest way. No one was saying “Hi” to each other, and no one was looking people in the eye as they passed by. Being from the Midwest, this came across as very unusual to me and even made me a little sad, so my friend and I decided we were going to say “Hi” to the next person we came across. Shortly after, a woman was approaching us and was about to pass by us on the sidewalk. She had her head down with no intention of looking up at us as she passed by. However, as soon as we said “Hi” to her, her head immediately came up. She looked us in the eyes, and instead of saying “Hi” right back to us, the first thing she said to us was “Thank you.” 

“Thank you.” 

All I could think was, did she really just say “Thank you” to us for simply saying hi to her? This really hit me. It made me realize that perhaps her “Thank you” was not just because we said “Hi” to her, but perhaps it was because that small encounter was the first time she had felt seen in a long time. 

Loneliness and the pain of feeling unseen, unknown, and unloved is an epidemic of our time, and Mother Teresa once said, 

“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty– it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.” 

We are made for community, and it is in community that we may come to a deeper understanding and conviction of the Father’s love for us and who we are as His beloved. Countless college students experience this poverty on their campuses: poverty of authentic human relationships and poverty of a relationship with Christ. It is my hope to see, know and love the men and women Christ intentionally gives and entrusts to me, and to lead them to a deeper conversion of His sacred love for them! 

By entering into this mission to spread the Gospel with FOCUS, I took a leap of faith to rely on the spiritual and financial support of mission partners to help me through this mission! Words cannot even begin to describe how thankful I am for all of those who have journeyed with me and supported me thus far, and I trust that the Lord will continue to give me amazing people to journey with me and support me on campus. If you are interested in journeying with me and supporting my mission to bring young men and women closer to Christ, I would love to schedule a time to chat! I would be more than honored to share this mission with you!