My Story

My Story

     When I was 16, I felt God calling me to missions. While reading the book "Jesus Freaks" by DC Talk, a book that told the stories of believers throughout the world from the time of the early church to present, I felt the desire to live more radically: to all that I had for Jesus, and I saw mission work as my opportunity to do this. I told my Parents about my desire to do missions, and we decided that the best way to determine if I was meant to do missions was to do a short-term mission trip first to try it out. It was mid-spring then, too late to sign up for most of the longer, foreign mission trips. I felt discouraged that we couldn't find any trips that looked worthwhile to me.

My first mission team on our trip to Pine Ridge

      Mom suggested that I take a trip with Converge: a youth group that I had been sporadically involved with for the past year. They were going to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I did not like the idea. In my mind, a mission trip meant going to some place foreign, and going as a missionary to another part of America seemed lame. In the end, since I didn't see a lot of other options, I decided I would go.

     My world was changed in that 10-day trip. My heart was torn to pieces as I witnessed suffering like never before, and I felt a heavy burden for the Lakota people. I came away from the trip excited to do missions feeling pretty sure that I was called to missions. As for my burden to reach the Lakota, I dismissed it, thinking that I would feel that way with whatever people I went to.
     So I went on a 7-week trip to Uganda and South Sudan. Afterwards I felt even more like I was called to full time missions, but at the same time I did not feel the same burden for the people there. I began to realize that perhaps the heart I had for the Lakota people in Pine Ridge was something unique.

Darlene a.k.a."Granny Backpack"
One of the Street People of Whiteclay

Shortly after returning to the States from Africa, I began to make plans to intern for 1 month with a small ministry. Located in Allen, SD on the Pine Ridge Reservation (Allen is the poorest town in the United States). During that month my friend Luke Johnson and I survived a tornado that blew through the church property, and worked with hundreds of Children on a weekly basis. We had a wide variety of fantastic experiences the most impactful experience was taking a trip to the town of Whiteclay. There I saw God working powerfully. It was in Whiteclay that I felt sure that I was called to minister to the Lakota people.
     The next summer (2014), Luke and I spent two months in Whiteclay, During that time I saw the need for a trained counselor on the Reservation. God stirred my heart to become that counselor. I returned home with plans to go through five more years of college to get a masters-degree in counselling and then move to the reservation after that to do ministry, but God got a hold of me through a short trip I made the following winter and made me realize that I made my plan to wait five years before beginning my ministry without asking God, and I felt a heavy burden on my heart to return to Whiteclay soon. After I shared this with Bruce, one of the missionaries at Lakota Hope Ministry in Whiteclay, he asked me to come out and join him in ministry by May 25. It was mid-January at the time and I knew I would have to raise my own support very quickly if before I went, but I took a leap of faith, and said agreed to join his ministry in May.
     The time since has been exhausting as I struggle to stay on top of the demands of work, and fundraising, and college, but it is also filled with joy as I seek to live out God's will for my life, and show his love to others.