My Support Letter

The following letter is what I sent out my family and friends:

I can’t believe how fast time has flown by! I am writing to you during my spring break as the end of my junior year at San Diego State is quickly approaching. To catch everyone up to speed I have been living down south since last August when I transferred from my community college to complete my degree as a Kinesiology major. It was a huge act of faith and very scary moving to an unknown place completely on my own for the first time. However, through much prayer and encouragement from my friends and family back home I was able to adjust very quickly and have since grown to love it here. It has been such a testimony to how faithful God is when we surrender everything to Him and trust His perfect will for our lives. He has blessed me with a beautiful city to live in and an amazing campus to study at, but I am mostly thankful for the community of believers at Flood church that I can serve Him with.
Flood (www.diveintoflood.com) is a creative church always coming up with new ways to experience God and providing outlets to grow in my faith with other college students. They are dedicated to serving the San Diego community and creating environments where people are transformed by the living God. As I have become more involved in my community as a servant of Christ, loving others through His love and grace, I have realized that my true passion has always been people. As a physically active person it has been great learning how the human body works through my studies, but where I get most of my energy from is getting to know others and ministering to them through love and laughter.
With summer soon around the corner, and the looming thought of having to take a summer class in order to graduate on time subsided, ideas for how to spend my three months of freedom began to circle through my head. Would I stay in San Diego, working and spending free time at the beach? Or would I go back home and just relax in the comfort of my family and friends? While there was nothing wrong with either option, I felt that I needed to be challenged more and began to pray for different ways I could serve this summer, truly wanting to be part of something bigger than myself. This is when the opportunity of a summer internship in Malawi, Africa was presented to me during an announcement at church. Although I have always been drawn to the stories and images of this unknown world there was no way I would ever be qualified enough to take part in this sort of ministry. I have always separated myself from the “spiritual giants” who went to Africa, and although I have been presented with short-term trips before I avoided the opportunity out of fear that God could not possibly use me in such a big way. What could I ever offer a nation in so much turmoil that is completely foreign to my “rich American” world? With all these fears and resistance it would be easy to just look for other opportunities that wouldn’t require as much sacrifice, but God kept putting this mission on my heart and drawing me toward the people in Malawi. After being reminded of all the times He has been faithful by trusting Him, especially through my recent move, I was able to cling to the truth that I can be used anywhere as long as I allow His Spirit to work through me.
For eight weeks, I will undertake an internship with other college students from Flood and across the country with a non-profit organization called Children of the Nations (www.cotni.org). Their mission is to assist orphaned and destitute children, pulling them out of their poverty, giving them a chance to live, and then providing them with skills and opportunities to become tomorrow’s leaders. In Malawi most of these children have been orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS, famine, malaria, and other untreatable diseases. While the main focus of the internship is mentoring these children in the COTN program, it also includes new skills, where we are given an opportunity to be fully immersed in another culture by assisting a family in day-to-day activities. Another aspect of the internship is personal ministry, where we are able to utilize our individual talents and passions to serve. Lastly, COTN offers us a better understanding of the many facets of the ministry as we get to see firsthand the work that they are already doing.
I’m writing to ask if you would be my partner in this by committing to prayer and assisting with finances. We are asked to individually raise $4,800 for this trip and any contribution you could make to my experience would be greatly appreciated. Your gift will be fully tax deductible and any contributions I receive above my individual cost will be applied to the internship program as a whole. Please make your checks payable to “Flood” and make sure not to write my name in the “memo” line. Instead, return the response portion below with your donation to me by May 31st if possible.
Even if you can’t give financially I still ask that you would consider partnering with me in prayer. I’m very excited to be participating in this trip, but I know that I cannot prepare myself fully for the experiences I will be encountering. I can’t wait to love on these precious lives and to tell you about it when I return! Thank you so much for your support and blessings!