Dear Family and Friends,


I am very excited to tell you all that I will be spending six weeks this summer serving as a short-term missionary with
Kids Alive International in the Dominican Republic. As many of you know, Kids Alive is the organization that my older sister Emily and brother in law Nate have served with in past summers. After seeing
and hearing about how God used the summer service trips in their lives, I knew serving abroad was something I wanted to experience.


God put together so many pieces to make this summer trip
possible. First of all, as many of you know, He has given me a huge passion for teaching! Since I was about 13 years old I have been teaching Irish Dancing lessons, and the joy I’ve found through teaching dance has led me to pursue degrees in secondary education and math at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. My
education classes and practicum experiences as well as continued opportunities to teach dance in Nashville have all shown me that God has gifted me with the passions and abilities to be a teacher. I have also been blessed with a stipend from Vanderbilt that
will fully cover my summer mission trip!


I am very excited to see what God does with this incredible
summer experience. I will be working with a team of amazing
missionaries from across the United States as well as a group of summer interns just like myself. We will teach a summer school program
and devotions, help out at events, and help with sponsorship projects.
This will be an incredible opportunity for me to pray about whether God wants to use my teaching abilities in an international setting in missions and experience what that would look like.


As I prepare to leave very soon (on June 14!), I hope you all will join me in praying for my team as we get ready to serve the children in the Dominican Republic. I will be using this blog to share my experiences and prayer requests while in the DR. I will update as often as I can, but I only expect to have internet access once or twice a week! Thank you all for playing an important part in my life, I can't wait to see what God does with this amazing experience!