Hello!! For those of you who do not know me, my name is Valarie! I am a 21-year-old student pursuing a degree in elementary education. This has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember, and the Lord has truly blessed me with the resources and the passion to work in this field. The Lord has really been working in my life through my ministry with children and the challenges that come with raising young children as Godly in a world that discourages them from doing just that. I have been so blessed in being able to run a small children’s ministry at a church called Jesus City and the Lord has truly opened my heart and my mind to so many things throughout working there.
Now…to the good stuff…I have always wanted to travel. I can remember being in kindergarten dreaming about all the places I would be able to go one day and seeing how beautiful the world that God created was. As life continued on, I had seen many people go on mission trips and come back with a new light for the Lord and his kingdom, but I honestly never thought that would be something I would be ready for. Flash forward to October 2024, my life was SO different from what I ever expected it to be, and I began to feel this pull on my heart towards travel again. at the time I didn’t quite understand what it was for or what it meant, but then out of the blue I started to get these advertisements for mission groups and then I had a friend mention how they thought it would be something I would do. This started my mind on thinking about potentially going on a mission trip. I have never been out of the country and most definitely have never stepped out in faith like this before, so I took some time to pray and study the Lord’s word on this topic. I found that after I took some time this idea was still in my head and the thought of potentially doing this brought me a whole new kind of joy, so I prayed a very specific pray that if I were meant to do this that everything would move quickly and easily without hiccups or troubles. Now this was big for me because I didn’t even have a passport when I began this process, nor did I have any prior experience. So, I started the long passport process and began the ‘interviews’ with mission groups.
For those of you who know…. passports tend to take a long time to be processed and mailed to you as there are often a large flux of people trying to get a passport. The total process took me about a month, from the day I turned in my paperwork to when I got my passport in the mail. This was only the first place in which God showed me that this was his plan. As I continued to meet with different people from different groups, I came across world race and actual had it recommended by a friend of mine. They just so happened to have a trip that worked perfectly with my work and school schedule, so I put in my application and began praying. Within a week I got an email requesting to set up an interview and then the ball was rolling. Next thing I knew I was all set up and starting on this amazing journey to go on a mission trip (something I still sit in awe at). Without the Lord’s hand in this process, I know I would not have come this far, and I am getting more and more excited for this upcoming trip! And I am even more excited to be able to share all of the Lord’s work with others around me and even far away!
-Valarie <3
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