As I reflect on my life so far, I am beginning to see the ways that God has been weaving into a beautiful tapestry the talents and passions that reflect who He has created me to be. The dominant threads include various creative talents, both artistic and innovative, as well as gifts of teaching and service.

My family and home church have always supported and encouraged my creative pursuits, especially my mom and dad. The office in my family home had an art closet which was stocked with almost every kind of craft material a kid could dream of! I spent hours crafting its contents into homemade birthday presents, Christmas ornaments, and household gadgets and decorations. For many years, my cousins and I would get together to make Christmas gifts for our family and friends. This often included a calendar featuring original pictures we had drawn for each month of the year. Giving a heartfelt and useful homemade gift seemed so much more meaningful than store-bought items.

My dad’s mother passed down her love of crocheting to my aunt, who in turn passed it on to me. She first taught me how to make pot holders, but I soon branched out to hats, scarves, mittens, socks, and ornaments too. I took orders from family and friends, who would buy items to give as gifts. In high school, I joined the knitting club. Our mission was to make hats for cancer patients who had lost their hair. But we didn’t just make typical hats! We created unique hats with varied and intricate patterns that we designed ourselves, hoping to bring a little beauty, joy, and comfort to those going through difficult times.

I grew up in Colorado, and couldn’t get enough of the great outdoors! My grandma on my mom’s side owns a little cabin nestled up in the Rocky Mountains. My cousins and I spent our summers there, building multi-roomed, terraced forts in the surrounding forest. We outlined them with rocks and twigs, furnished them with tree stump chairs, and decorated them with pinecone wind chimes and moss rugs. My interest in building and design was also expressed through the extravagant houses that I constructed using my large collection of Legos, not to mention the elaborate gingerbread houses that I created every Christmas!

I enjoyed singing, as did many of my friends at church, so when we were in upper elementary school, our church music director started a children’s choir to give us an opportunity to contribute during Sunday worship. She always had us doing creative things – singing traditional songs from other countries, playing the hand chimes to accompany our songs, and putting on mini children’s musicals based on Bible stories. After I had "outgrown" children’s choir, I joined bell choir, and also sang and played guitar in the youth worship band.

At age 12, I lost two of my grandparents within one month of each other. This was my first personal experience with death, and it stirred up a lot of emotions and questions. During this difficult time, my aunt suggested that I start listening to the local Christian radio station. It was then that I began to understand the power that music, based on Biblical truths like hope and healing, could have on human emotions and thoughts. In high school, I began creating scripturally-based lyrics and composing guitar accompaniment for my own heart-felt worship songs to God.

I’m not sure at what point I decided that I was going to be a flautist, but when it came time to register for my middle school music elective, I remember announcing to my mom that I wanted to play flute in the band. I treasure many fond memories surrounding my flute – putting on little recitals in my grandmother’s living room after school, playing special music at church, marching with the high school band at football games, and playing Christmas tunes at nursing homes with a flute choir. As I became more advanced, the hand-me-down flute on which I had learned as a beginner was just not able to keep up with me. One day, when I sat down to practice and opened my case, there inside was a beautiful, shiny new open hole flute with a B footjoint! Come to find out, my dad had talked with my flute teacher about getting a good next-step flute for me, and he had ordered this one based on her advice. What a wonderful surprise and encouragement! With this flute, my playing really began to shine!

I knew that my gift for playing the flute was from God, but I didn’t yet see how it would "fit" into my future, except for playing at church every once in awhile, and for personal enjoyment. On the other hand, I saw additional gifts and passions manifesting themselves which seemed to be more "useful" in serving God, and those threads started to take higher priority in my life.

My mom has been a special education teacher for over 35 years, and from a very early age, her love for teaching and working with children inspired the same passion in me. I set up my very own classroom with a chalkboard easel in the basement. For hours on end, I taught the ABCs and 123s to rows of imaginary students sitting at imaginary desks. I dreamed of the day when I’d be "grown up enough" to have real students to teach to read, write, and do arithmetic, and to open their eyes to the wonders of the world, as well as to help them learn to work together and tell the difference between right and wrong. I believed that education was a major key in helping to transform individual lives and change our world for the better.

My mom also fostered my personal love for reading and writing. I liked to make up stories, and I remember that mom and I would sit at the kitchen table together making some of my stories into books. She wrote the words neatly on the pages, and then I illustrated them. In school, writing became one of my favorite subjects, because I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out the best way to express my thoughts and ideas.

I also became an avid reader, and spent the summers reading in my backyard, lying on a blanket in the grass, while often taking breaks to look for pictures in the clouds. In my early teen years, I read books about pioneers, and imagined myself as one of the first people forging across uncharted territory. Although I knew one must be brave and strong to face the many hardships of pioneer life, I was most inspired by their trust in God’s provision and protection, their drive to establish a better life for themselves, and their resourcefulness and dependence on the land. I wondered how awestruck they must have been at catching the first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains rising up over the horizon, and honestly, I was a bit envious of the beautiful, open, undeveloped landscape in which they established their homesteads! I think it was this same interest in exploring new places, and learning about cultures other than my own, that led me to pursue studying Spanish in high school and college.

Over the years, I transitioned to reading books about major problems in our world, like poverty, lack of quality education, and modern day slavery, as well as about people who had faithfully followed God’s call to serve His hurting world in specific ways. My heart became burdened for the disadvantaged of the world, and I began to seek God about how He might be calling me to respond to their needs.

My church emphasized the importance of living out our faith through service, and was very active in missions, both locally and internationally. We supported many missionaries, and prayed for them every Sunday. The first time one of the missionary families came to visit, I was surprised to see that they were just "normal" people, and I was impressed by their obedience to God’s calling to serve Him in a foreign country. I’ll never forget the day that a substitute teacher in middle school briefly shared with my class that she had just returned from being a missionary in Africa. Through her words, something "clicked," confirming that God really did call "normal" people to be missionaries, thereby giving me permission to wonder...Was God calling me into that kind of service, too? I began to pray and ask God.

The first opportunity God arranged for me to really "get my feet wet" in missions was in high school, when I participated in a 10-day trip to Nicaragua sponsored by my church. The team I worked with organized a Vacation Bible School for the children in a rural village. This trip opened my eyes to some of the realities of poverty. I was overwhelmed by the people’s lack of basic needs and education, but was humbled by the generosity and kindness they showered upon my teammates and me. I felt God urging me to go on the same trip the following year, and prayed that God would use that trip to show me if being a missionary and working with kids was something He had planned for my future.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, the responsibility for running the Vacation Bible School program the following year pretty much fell into my hands completely! Praise God that He made that week a success! I came home totally exhausted, but in my heart I felt that God had answered my prayer. I would probably never go back to Nicaragua, but I knew that I should remain open to international missions in the future. In fact, it seemed that God had “updated” the vision in my heart, combining together my passion for education, my burden for helping the disadvantaged, and my desire to share the Good News with the lost. I envisioned opening a Christian school for disadvantaged children in a 3rd world country.

With this vision in my heart, I left my mountains behind and headed east to study Elementary Education and Spanish at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. My gifts of creativity and teaching became intertwined, as I learned about creating stimulating learning environments, providing creative lessons and hands-on activities for young learners, and designing special plans to address academic and behavior problems in the classroom.

In addition to my studies, I participated in many service-oriented projects, like volunteering at the food bank, as well as Campus Ministry activities, like interfaith outreaches. Also, I was involved in Symphonic Band, the flute studio, various student-led worship teams, bell choir, and an all girls’ vocal choir.

Throughout my years of schooling, I had enjoyed participating in many plays and musicals, so I was eager to be involved in Wartburg’s theatre department. Unfortunately, after my first production with the group, I decided not to participate in future productions. I was disappointed by the worldly themes, language, and attitudes highlighted in the play and lived out by the drama team.

Later on, an independent group of students held auditions for Jesus Christ Superstar, so I decided to give that a try, since I knew that I agreed with the message behind the musical. The atmosphere created while preparing for this production, intended to share a spiritual message to glorify God, was very different from that of the previous production, intended for worldly entertainment! This experience furthered my understanding of the important difference between using the arts to serve the world and to serve God.

During my junior year, I spent 6 months studying Spanish in Córdoba, Argentina. I was enthralled with learning about the new culture in which I was immersed! Some of my most impactful experiences included volunteering in a preschool classroom, going on weekly outreaches to deliver meals to the homeless, and spending a weekend building a house for an elderly woman living in a community recently relocated to the city landfill. God arranged for me to meet a missionary family serving in Córdoba, and I grew a lot in my faith through participation in their home-church community. I also learned a lot about the joys and challenges of "being a missionary" by observing their family.

The summer after returning from Argentina, I wanted to work at a Spanish immersion camp, but that wasn’t God’s plan. Just before submitting my application, I was invited to fill the Arts and Crafts Coordinator position at EWALU Lutheran Camp. God confirmed that this was His will for me, and He helped me to develop meaningful projects that would hopefully impact the campers on a deeper level…not just be something that they would throw away when they got home. We made paper mache piggybanks for saving money to give to charity, stepping stones to remind us that God walks with us all the time, and dry erase prayer frames on which to write personal prayer requests. Although I entered into this experience quite hesitantly, it turned out to be a pivotal summer. God surrounded me with a few new friends who encouraged me to seek Him for clarity about His calling in my life. I found myself hungering for the word of God more than ever before!

On the recommendation of one of these new friends, I took the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course during my senior year at college. Through this course, the Lord confirmed that He was calling me into missions…even right away!

But where did He want me to go? I assumed I’d go to a Spanish-speaking country, and pursued options through my missionary friends back in Argentina. However, over a cup of tea one day, a Perspecitves classmate told me that she was going to Cambodia for two-years to work with women coming out of the sex trade. She encouraged me to pray about joining her team. This caught me off guard. I had read many books about modern-day slavery and the sex trade, and was very troubled by the horrors and complexity of the problem, but I didn’t have any training or skill set that would benefit those women. Nevertheless, in my heart I heard God whispering, "I want you to go to Cambodia," so I applied, and was invited to join the team! I spent the summer raising support and preparing for this new "adventure," praying that if God wanted me to teach or work with kids in some way, that He would open the door!

It was one week after arriving in Cambodia that a friend took us to visit the Cambodian Christian Arts Ministry School. The students performed a few lively dances for us, and the directors shared about the beautiful vision of their ministry. They also told us about the difficult times the school was going through, and asked if any of us might be interested in volunteering to teach English, or some other subject.

Their vision for rescuing and educating disadvantaged children before they are sucked into the sex or slave trade resonated with my heart. And their use of the Cambodian traditional art forms, cleansed of non-Christian messages and filled with the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ, seemed to be a real life example of the missions principles that I had learned in Perspectives. I eagerly volunteered to teach English a few hours each week.

As time went on, I felt God urging me to invest more and more of my time and energy into other areas of the CCAM ministry. I saw God developing and refining the gifts that I already knew I had, while also revealing new ones that I had never dreamed of having! I marvel at how every one of these gifts, talents, or interests has turned out either to contribute to CCAM’s current work or to fill in a gap previously preventing progress in a certain area of the ministry vision.

For example, students and staff had written and illustrated a number of bilingual (Cambodian and English) children’s storybooks based on principles from the Bible. They hoped to distribute these books throughout Cambodia in order to support children’s literacy, as well as to introduce Biblical truths to those who may not have heard about the One True God. However, no one on their team knew how to produce the books on the computer for publication. The project was at a standstill. Being a huge proponent of literacy, I was excited to hear about this project, and volunteered to try my hand at learning to use the computer programs. However, without any background knowledge, my efforts led nowhere. Then God arranged for me to receive free training at a local Christian publishing house. The skills I gained from this training opened the door for the book project to take off. With the guidance of CCAM director Gioia Michelotti, who is also the book writing and illustrating teacher and editor, five CCAM children’s books have now been published, and many more are in progress!

This training provided me with a good foundational understanding of many new computer programs. As I kept trying my hand at other projects, I discovered a new set of gifts developing, which included a knack for figuring out how to use different computer design programs, and the ability to create and design things using those programs. So far, some of the opportunities God has given me for using these gifts include the revision of the CCAM brochure and staff business cards, the creation of note cards and calendars featuring CCAM student artwork, the production of dance videos and short documentaries, and maintenance of the CCAM website.

When my dad was younger, he was a photographer...the kind who used "real" film and patiently developed photos in a dark room! I have always admired his photographs, many of which are still displayed on the walls of our house. As I studied each one, I wondered...When my dad took this picture, what was he like, who was he with, or what was he thinking? I continue to be captivated by a photograph’s ability to capture and preserve the beauty, emotion, and action (or calm) of a single moment. Except for taking an introductory photography class in high school, I had not pursued this interest much until recently, when I bought a professional digital camera to assist with the photography needs at CCAM. I still have a lot to learn about the science and art behind photography, but at CCAM there are many opportunities for me to practice, like documenting daily life, performances, and outreaches, and taking cultural pictures to be used in promotional materials!

God has answered my prayers regarding teaching and working with children here in Cambodia, because now, in addition to English, I also teach preschool, computer, and even flute! God knew that, in my heart, I missed the flute and desired to have a reason to play again. It turns out that CCAM had several flutes, but no teacher...until I came along! In addition to teaching, there are also many opportunities for my flute playing to enrich the music in CCAM worship services, performances, and recordings.

The summer before coming to Cambodia, I prayed two other very specific things. I prayed that God would give me a mentor, someone mature and grounded in her relationship with God, to help guide me in my walk of faith and to teach me, especially about the Bible, since I did not have a strong scriptural background. I also asked God to help me understand who I was, and to show me how I needed to be changed in order for me to become who God had created me to be.

Gioia is a clear answer to the first prayer. She has been a "full-time" missionary walking by faith in complete dependence on God for over 30 years, 20 of which have been in Cambodia. She organizes Bible lessons for us to study together, shares valuable lessons that she has learned throughout her life, takes me under her wing as an apprentice to learn new things, and makes herself available whenever I need to talk. Through seeking the Lord personally, studying the Bible on my own and with Gioia, and working and living in close community with the whole CCAM family, God has shown me a lot about who I am and who He created me to be. He has also convicted me about areas in my life that still need to be surrendered to Him, so that He can continue to weave this masterpiece of me! (Ephesians 2:10)

In the process, God has also been reforming my views and ideas about education, the arts, and missions, and their relationships to each other. From early in life, I saw that the world around me was full of pain and evil. I wanted to be a teacher, because I believed that education could "change the world" and make it a better place. First of all, God has shown me that it was prideful and ignorant of me to think that I, as an educator or as a human being, could "change the world." It is true that academic education is important for an individual’s development, well-being, and success. We need academically educated people in order to sustain and continue the development of the world we live in. And academic education through a "Christian lens" even sheds light on the wonders of creation and leads us to praise and glorify God. But there are many reasons why education in and of itself can’t possibly be the solution for all of the world's problems, primarily because the Bible tells us that in the last days the world will be full of evil and corruption, until Jesus Christ comes back to make all things new. (2 Timothy 3:1-5; Book of Revelation) Nevertheless, God continues to reveal His life changing truth to those open to receiving it. Although only God can actually change people’s minds and hearts, He wants us to be a part of the process! (Romans 10:13-21; Matthew 5:13-16; 1 Corinthians 3:5-9)

In addition, God has shown me that I was too narrow-minded to think of myself only as an educator. I have always been involved in the arts in some way or another, but they always seemed like "extra" things that I did for enjoyment. I mostly let Kelsey-the-teacher take center stage, keeping my other gifts and talents off in the wings. Now I understand that God has clearly given me all of these different gifts, talents, and interests, and He wants all of them to be fully integrated into my life of service in His Kingdom.

As I previously shared, I was already a firm believer in the powerful impact that education can have in a person’s life, but now God has led me to also embrace the power of the arts to deeply influence people’s thoughts, actions, attitudes, and beliefs. Since each and every song, dance, drama, work of art, or story sends a message to the people who interact with it, Christian artists have a unique opportunity to powerfully influence people for Christ through their work. This is even more important when communicating with illiterate people, who cannot read and have no access to books, especially the many disadvantaged people here in Cambodia. I am convinced that God has a special role for Christian artists and their art, spreading light and truth in these last days.

Each culture has differing ways of expressing and interpreting ideas and emotions. Now I understand that, as a teacher, a creative person, and a missionary, it is important that I be humble to learn about the culture around me, so that I will not inhibit the message of Jesus Christ by saying or doing something offensive, or by imposing my cultural ways on others.

God first introduced me to this concept while playing guitar and singing English worship songs with one of my Argentinean friends. I was singing the Spanish translations of the English songs, but noticed that my friend was singing the original English words. I asked him why he didn’t want to sing in Spanish. He explained that since he was fairly fluent in English, he appreciated the beauty of the English lyrics, and that singing them led him to worship God. The translated lyrics, however, felt restrictive and just didn’t flow well. He wished that there were more worship songs written by Spanish speakers to facilitate meaningful worship experiences for Spanish-speaking Christians.

One of the many things that impressed me about CCAM was that they are creating original songs, dances, and dramas from the word of God using the Cambodian language and traditional styles. Creating works of art that are culturally appropriate is a powerful way to share Biblical truths with the Cambodian people and is a meaningful contribution to the Cambodian Church.

As I step back and take a fresh look at the tapestry of my life that has been completed so far, I can thankfully see more of who God has created me to be and what His purpose for my life really is. Although He has given me many creative gifts and talents to be enjoyed; nevertheless, He has also shown me that there is a greater purpose, which is for me to use them to preach the Good News and bring Him glory! In addition, I sense God’s calling to encourage and help train others to use their creative gifts, especially in culturally appropriate ways.

It seems that, yet again, God has "updated" the vision in my heart. While many people come to 3rd world countries saying that they want to start a new school, they often overlook the fact that there are many schools, already started by others, that are struggling to keep their doors open due to lack of helping hands and financial resources. CCAM is one of those struggling schools. I believe that God has sent me to CCAM, not only in answer to my prayers for a place to serve Him with my gifts, but also in answer to their prayers for more helpers!

God has masterfully woven my gifts, talents, and passions together throughout my past experiences, preparing me for and leading me straight to CCAM. I am excited to see how He will continue to weave these many-colored threads, and perhaps others yet to be discovered, into the tapestry of my life!