For those of you who are curious, I thought this would be a good place to share where I've come from and how I got to where I am today. This is my story.
I grew up in Laurel, MT and lived there for the first 18 years of my life. I was raised in a Christian home by godly parents. We went to church most Sundays and I remember going during the week quite a bit as well for youth group or some other mid-week something-er-other. It was through this upbringing that I was able to gain a significant base in scripture and how to read the bible, as well as what it means to actually be a Christian. I don't remember when I fully accepted Christ as my Savior, but I know that this was the case. I even had a pretty good prayer life going through high school. The thing was, though, I didn't have strong enough roots to allow me to continue my faith into college.
When I entered my freshman year at Northwest College (in Powell, WY) I, like most students, was now confronted with the fact that if I were to continue living the Christian life I was going to have to do it on my own. And I don't mean that I would have been alone in the process, but I had to come to grips with my own faith, I could no longer live off of the faith of my parents. The Lord protected me from many of the trappings that many college students are ensnared in, I went out and got drunk once, which was enough for me, and I never was put in a situation where I would have sex. All of that was good, but the problem with it all was that I also wasn't growing spiritually. I knew about Campus Ventures, one of the people that had lead the high school youth group at 1st Congregational Church had gone there and had grown through CV, but I never was approached by anyone and invited and I never had the initiative to go myself. Actually, the fear I had was probably the bigger problem. I had made some friends in my dorm, and they were actually great friends and I am so thankful for them, but they weren't Christian friends. So why would I want to give up these great friends and risk being rejected by these people that I had never met? The entire time, however, I was longing for that connection with God. I knew what it was that I was longing for, and I knew where I needed to go to rebuild that relationship, but I didn't want to, I was too afraid to, and I tried desperately to fill it with other things. Again, God was good to me and kept me from many things that would have ensnared me, but it was a dark point in my life.
I then worked for NWC over that first summer and God put someone in my life that brought me back into that relationship that I so desperately craved. As I was working at a custodial assistant, I got to know a young man who was working basically as a receptionist in one of the buildings I helped clean. He, being a Christian for probably 4 or 5 months at that point, asked me about my faith, about my church habits. He then invited me to church with him and when school started invited me to go to CV. I resisted a week or two, but since he had asked and since I knew this is what I needed, I started going. It was through CV that I was re-acquainted with my Savior, with His love and with His embrace. I made friends there that I have had ever since. It was this rekindled relationship that led me to becoming the Resident Director of a new residence hall that NWC built, and I became the first RD of Simpson Hall (that is another story in and of itself, but it's sufficient to say that I would not have been RD without God's intervention). Now, NWC is a community college, traditionally a two year school, but because I had missed out on the growth that God had planned for my first two years of college, I was at NWC for four years, and RD for the last two. It was a great time of growth and of building relationships which have come back into play now, but at the end of the school year in the Spring of 2008 I was in desperate need to move on.
God called me to turn down basically a full-ride scholarship to MSU in Bozeman, MT to attend a private liberal arts school in Tacoma, WA. When I first arrived at Pacific Lutheran University, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I was now in the Pacific Northwest, and I was completely out of place. The rural, hunting, Montana/Wyoming culture that I had experienced for the first 22 years of my life was suddenly thrust into a liberal, urban environment that was much more focused on vegan diets than bagging their buck for the year. Oddly enough, God had put a few people in Tacoma that I knew, but none of them attended PLU and it was there that I was to get a kick-start in growth. I was there bound and determined not to make the same mistake I made in Powell. I knew that I was going to be there for only 2 years (it was quite a bit more expensive than the $500 I had to come up with each semester for NWC) and I was determined to start being involved with a ministry right away. I began to attend Ignite! and it was there that the Lord challenged me in ways that I didn't know He would. During my time at PLU God brought to attention my pride and cockiness, pain and fear that I had been living in, and developed the understanding in me that I was not meant for the life that I had been "planning" since I started college.
It was here that I also had my first experience with the charismatic side of Christianity. I grew up in church, and was taught good doctrine and had a very well-grounded understanding of the Christian faith. Through that and the Holy Spirit I was also able to recognize things that didn't seem to fit with scripture. My first night attending Ignite I saw people dancing, heard people praying in tongues, and just felt an air of festivity that was not the experience I was used to being a part of in Christian meetings. But at the same time, I could tell that it was God in the room, that these people were not experiencing anything outside of scripture and that this was something to learn from. I was skeptical at first, but as I got to know the heart of the leaders and the people involved, I knew that God was at work. It was also at an Ignite retreat where God confirmed in no uncertain terms that I would be coming to Laramie to work with college students. The speaker mentioned Laramie three times as a place where people could be sent to, and that we would need to be obedient to that calling. I had been fighting that battle for months, but I could not ignore this sign from the Lord. The Lord stretched me and grew me in this time, allowing me to see what how He uses all of the members of His body to reach out and spread His glory among the world.
It was all these experiences that have shaped me into the person that I have become, and it isn't over yet. Now that I work with CV (under the same people that mentored me at NWC) here at the University of Wyoming, God is continuing to stretch my faith and to push me into a place of complete obedience to Him. The journey has just begun, and I'm excited for what the Lord will bring next.
