no sacrifice. no victory.

hello to this new adventure.

“Lead them to the One who can heal their wounds”. Apparently, this phrase stuck out to me otherwise I would have never wrote it on my notebook that beginning of this summer. And I wouldn’t quite realize the importance that it had on who I was becoming until almost the end.

I have watched brokenness. I have seen defeat. People so empty you wonder if there was anything there to begin with. And in all four years of working with kids from all backgrounds, no story had ever broke my heart as much as this one did.

All week long I had been praying that somehow God would unify 32 girls. 32 middle school girls to be exact. The cools ones were there and the dorky ones. The girls who all the boys liked and the girls who were never even noticed, too. All were shoved into a tiny living space with only five toilets and two mirrors. And I wanted them to connect? Who was I kidding, there seemed to be no way. But I kept praying. “Break them Lord, break them so we can be made whole together. Unify them God.”

It was the last night and the coming together that I had so hoped for, didn’t happen. And then she spoke up. She was quiet for a twelve year old and the words that came out shocked us all.

The room fell silent as she told us of her drug-using parents, her four younger siblings who turned to her for necessities like food even though she, at nine, had no idea where any was. She spoke of witnessing her father hit her siblings, her mom and then eventually, her. She told us that she had to watch her mom use drugs right in front of her and she had to hear the fights that happened nightly in the room next door. And all the while she had to make sure that the innocent children she held wouldn’t hear it too. And then one night, the cops came and took them all away. The nine-year old girl, with wisdom beyond her years, knew that they might get a second chance at life, but she also knew that she wouldn’t see her brothers and sisters again.

As she was talking, I looked around, most of these girls were crying, staring intently at the girl who they didn’t even give a second glance to before. But she didn’t cry. Years of becoming numb, I guess.

And I stopped praying for brokenness. These girls were already broken. But through their own brokenness and hurt, they became whole. They were unified. But now my heart was broken. I walked away so angry at God for letting this happen, angry at the perpetrators who broke that girl, and angry at myself because I knew there was nothing I could do to take it all away.

Fast forward to the end of the evening when a crying girl came up to me sobbing. As I held her, I told her that Jesus can heal her broken heart. She stopped crying for a second and looked up at me, “you promise?” she asked.

Then I knew. I couldn’t go back in time and undo the damage. And I couldn’t do anything myself to take away the pain. But I could promise them with full belief that this promise is truth. Jesus can heal their broken hearts.

“Lead them to the One who can heal their wounds”

It’s not up to me to fix them and I couldn’t if I tried, but I can help show them the way to the One who can.

That is why in two weeks, I’m packing my stuff and driving 863 miles down to Los Angeles to be apart of a place where I get the opportunity to lead very broken people to the One who can heal their wounds everyday.

I am going to be serving alongside fifty other passionate college kids who want to make a difference in our world.

For the past year and a half, I have worked as hard as my body (and sometimes harder) can handle to raise as much money as possible to be able to go on this yearlong adventure. And I am SO excited to go!

So I guess this is my farewell to my home, my city, and the places where I had the times of my life! Goodbye for now to the people who made my life so great! You have inspired me to do greater things and to keep living for something bigger than myself! It's been good guys, thanks for making great :] I will miss you tons but I'll come back.

Thanks for keeping me in your prayers and your encouragement throughout this process has been amazing and I fully mean it when I say, without that, this dream would have never been able to come true.

lovelovelove YOU ALL!
kasey