I was born in Nashville, Tennessee, but now consider
the smaller town of Shelbyville, Tennessee, which
is just about an hour to the south and east of
Nashville, to be home. I grew up in church and
was baptized at a young age, but as an older teenager
I began to take my faith seriously and was baptized
again, this time with a better understanding of
the true reason for baptism.
I was 17 years old when I went on a mission trip with my youth group to Oklahoma City to work with a small church in a poor neighborhood. The second mission trip in which I participated was in Reynosa, Mexico, two years later.
Once again, it was with a group from my church, but this time we worked with an even smaller church in an even poorer neighborhood. Although we were just a few miles across the border from the USA, it was a brand new world to me. Seeing the way other people in the world did things opened my eyes to look beyond myself. And though I did not enjoy the week in Mexico, it did affect me in a way that opened me up to the possibility of doing missions later in life, for more than just a week at a time.
A few years after that, while I was still studying Science at Middle Tennessee State University in order to be a teacher, I learned of the Journeyman program of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention at my church's first ever missions conference. A missionary asked me if I had ever considered going for two years as a Journeyman. I had never heard of the term, and so had never considered it, but it sounded like a good plan. So I worked to finish college with the hopes of finding a job teaching somewhere in the world.
A job in Mexico City seemed like the right match, and I arrived in Mexico City in December 2000. I worked as a junior high and high school math and science teacher for two years before returning to the USA in December 2002. After many months spent in the USA and after much consideration, I decided to inquire about the possibility of returning to Mexico City to serve again at the school, and arrived back in Mexico City in May 2004 to serve another two year term, again teaching math and science in grades 7-12.
