Well hello! It's Jala and I just wanted to write a little somethin' about who I am and why I am doing this trip:)

For starters, I am 18-years-old and I live in Dallas, Texas. I am taking a gap year so that I can prepare for college and go on this trip! If you were to walk into my house on a random day, you'd probably find me singing and playing the piano, hanging out with my friends and siblings, bumping into trees and falling on the ground as I attempt to mountain bike, or calling colleges to try and find ways to make them like me more than everyone else. 

Christianity has always been an enormous part of my life and since I was young and I am honestly blessed that my parents have taken great care to raise me and my three siblings in the church. As a kid, church and Christianity were activities that I did because I found friends there, but when my family moved from Dallas to Austin Texas, I had to choose to make Christianity deeper than a simple tool to find friends. Around that time I truly began to seek out a relationship with Christ and I found Christianity to be incredibly deeper than what I had thought it was before.

I first heard about World Race through my cousin, Jordan Shea. I enjoyed following her story on her blog and Instagram but I myself never considered going on a mission trip until I realized that I did not want to immediately enter college after high school. Suddenly, I had an entire year of time that I did not know what to do with. I found myself reading books like Bruchko and God’s Smuggler which tell the stories of young adults who followed God’s calling to go on missions and it seemed as if God had cleared my schedule so I could go on missions for Him. I am so pumped to serve the Lord through missions because I am in a position in my life where I do not have many commitments to tie me down to a specific place I am so ready to grow deeper in my relationship with Christ as I serve him in a different region of the world.