The Beginning

I started college in August of last year. It was not even close to what I imagined. I left my home, family, friends and state to start my new adventure. I went to Florida without a clue of what I wanted to do, a vague idea of who I wanted to be, and a ton of goals for my new college life. I went from communications to journalism religion to education to religion/education to education/religion. I always had a sense that something wasn't QUITE right but I figured it was nothing. One night, I was talking to a new friend about wanting to go to Africa. He was an athletic training major who wants to end up in Tanzania. He said he chose athletic training to be able to offer medical care when he went to Africa. That sparked my imagination.
I was in my first year seminar with Dr. Lynch. He is a medical doctor turned professor who is BEYOND passionate about health care for all. The more he argued for health, the more interested I got.
I finally couldn't stand it. I talked to my mom (a neonatal nurse practitioner) over fall break, asking if she thought I was smart enough to become a nurse. (I've always been an English-religion-not-math-or-science-person). She assured me I could do it if I set my mind to it and worked hard. I prayed and almost instantaneously knew, I'd found my calling.
One of my heroes, Nate Saints, once said, 'I've always believed that if one is called to missions, God will make him unbearably miserable in pursuit of anything else.' I have to agree with Nate.
Just after my decision to become a nursing major, I went back to school. A few days later I reconnected with a friend. Jon and I had always picked at one another when we were friends about 2 1/2 years ago. We lost contact for about a year. I was a little skeptical when we started talking (I hadn't heard the best things about him since we'd lost touch) but decided to chat with him anyway. He was going to school for aviation and was crazy about flying. When I told him I wanted to go to Africa as a missionary nurse he FLIPPED. He was so excited. A little to excited perhaps. He told me, "ok so this might be totally weird and don't read into too much or anything but for wateva reason I wanna say it...so one of the pilots who I'm friends with where I work flew with MAF in Mexico for 6 years, and he told me if missions is what I really need to do, then do it before I'm married or find a wife who's as committed to it as I am, and I even prayed about it this morning too. I just think it's weird that now I find out God's put on your heart to do to Africa too...like I said don't read into it or anything but I'm just saying." Weird right? Well we've been dating for almost 7 months.
That's the background of how I got started on this journey. Now, I want to start a hospital or orphanage in Africa. It's a process that starts now, so I want to keep track of how it goes.
Most recently, I was led by God to transfer to Regis University which is a lot closer to home. It'll be interesting to see how this transition works.
May the Lord bless and keep you!
Kristin