If someone had told me a couple of months ago that I would fly thousands of miles to spend my first college spring break on a mission trip in Guatemala, I would have called them crazy. I had never been on a plane, never been out of the Southeast of the United States, never had been incredibly open in my relationship with Christ with my peers, and had never really tried sharing the gospel with anyone. The idea of doing all of this and especially doing it in the span of one week was something that I would have never pictured for myself. However, as soon as spring break rolled around I was seated on that plane heading straight to Pasaco, Guatemala with some of my ADPi sisters and other Greek life students to share the gospel in the communities there.

   The first day I was extremely anxious about evangelizing for the first time in my life, being with a group of people I didn’t really know, and overall doing a good job representing the gospel on the trip. I had so many fears that I wasn’t cut out for missions or that I wasn’t going to make deep friendships while we were there. However, the Lord proved my fears wrong throughout the week. Getting to share God’s love for us and the good news that Jesus died for our sins and defeated death, so that we may have a relationship with God was an incredible experience I will never forget. Also seeing how hearing the gospel affected people so deeply in every house we walked into, and how sharing it deepened my faith and inspired me to be more bold is something that is going to stick with me for the rest of my life. The community and friendships that we built there have provided me with some of the most kind-hearted, God-loving, and authentic friends who are so hard to come by and who are a blessing to have. 

Overall, our trip to Guatemala is one that has affected me so deeply in all the best ways and showed me how incredible our Lord is. Three paragraphs simply does not do justice to how impactful this mission trip was for me and the amazing friends I made along the way. While taking that big leap of faith is scary, it is the best choice I have ever made in my life and I find myself now looking at how I can continue to go on mission trips every spring break from this point forward, and I hope that I can continue to share this wonderful experience with my wonderful sisters at ADPi.

- Kadee Walker PC’23