The Lord has called me to serve as the team director at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. Go huskies!! As a team director my role is to form a team of missionaries to share the gospel and invite students to live lives of heroic virtue. You’ll probably find me drinking Cast Iron coffee or hanging out at the Newman Center. I have a pretty cool story about how Jesus and His loving gaze has changed my life — I think you should hear it sometime! Come find me. I’d love to share it with you. 🙂

Team NIU: me, Andie, Ben, and Zach

I was blessed to attend Franciscan University for college, surrounded by many young people desiring to live holy lives. However, my freshman year, I quickly bought into the lie the world tells us that we are what we do. For my first two years, I filled my schedule with as many volunteer opportunities, clubs, Bible studies, and activities as I could. I thought that the more holy things I did, the more I could prove my worth to the Father. However, by the end of my junior fall, I had run myself absolutely exhausted, and the perfect exterior life I had tried to create began to slowly unravel. By the grace of God, I became friends with a missionary on campus that year who was not so interested in what I accomplished but who I was. She began to invite me to pray with her daily. It was in these daily encounters with the Lord in prayer that Jesus began to reveal to me that, more than my to-do lists, report cards, or awards, Jesus simply wanted my heart. His love has changed everything, brought hope and living color to every part of my life. As my life began to change, I began to see the Lord at work in the lives of my friends. I began inviting them to pray daily with me and to commit in real ways to living as a missionary disciple in the world. Slowly but surely it wasn’t just one missionary and myself on mission, but a missionary, myself, and several of my friends! In the months following, I began to realize Jesus inviting me to bring this Love that changes everything to other college students , and so I said yes to being a FOCUS missionary.

As a missionary, my greatest desire is to lead all students to Christ. My life has been transformed by Jesus and I want nothing more than to bring this joy to others and introduce them to the life-changing message of the Gospel. In His ministry on earth, Jesus humbled Himself to meet us on our level, taking on our humanity, and spent most of His time investing deeply in a few. I look to Jesus own example to find the best method of reaching the world. I’ve been constantly amazed by the different souls I’ve encountered on campus.

Photo: Two of my disciples (Nicole and Jaeli) at SEEK

One of my favorite saints, St. Therese of Lisieux, once said, Some give by going to the missions, others go by giving. Without both, there are no missions.

When I answered the Lord’s invitation to join FOCUS, I said yes to relying on the spiritual and financial support of mission partners and Father s faithfulness. If you are interested in joining me on mission as a financial mission partner, please consider joining me with a monthly gift by clicking Support Lauren above. I am incredibly honored to share in this mission with you!