My Journey to Coaching
When I was 16 years old, God called me to overseas missions in a small church in North Carolina. My lifelong dream had been to be a teacher and I couldn't wait to serve God through the classroom especially to missionary kids. After meeting my Hawaiian husband at Toccoa Falls College, we began prepping for overseas living as we started our teaching careers in North Carolina. God continued to strengthen my training through a M.Ed in special education as God began to route my life into one that loved encouraging others by creating a plan to help them succeed.
God moved our young family to Daejeon, South Korea in 2007 to begin our career teaching and serving overseas. I grew up in South Korea. Moving far away from immediate family cause me grow up exponentially. In South Korea, I learned what it was like to live cross-culturally while navigating a cross-cultural marriage, raise 3 amazing third culture kids in a fast passed technological world, and to celebrate the international church that was more amazing and bigger than I ever knew. We found a family of friends that became a community like no other we had ever known. Despite all the joys, I still had to learn God was still with me even when my life crumbled into severe disappointment and heartache.
Just 55 days apart, our family packed up our Korean home of 7 years and transplanted ourselves into an empty apartment in Quito, Ecuador. Exhausted, broken, terrified yet excited for this new journey, we began our ministry as support-raising missionaries. It wasn't long before the newness wore off and the longing for our now foreign home set in. We are often expected as Christians and missionaries to put on our happy face and keep moving. And that's what I did for three years. Did I still enjoy my job? Yes, most days, because it was all about helping others.
But who was helping me? Where was my coach to help me get through this transition?
We didn't have one. But boy do I wish we had!
Soon I could no longer keep the tears from flowing. Ministry that I once loved became a to-do list that I could never see the end of. I wanted to pack up and go home but if I did that, where would my identity be?
The title 'missionary teacher' defined me and without it I was nothing.
Without serving other people, who would ever love me?
Thankfully through the help of a counselor, my pastor, and my small tribe of friends around, I began to climb out of my season of depression and burnout once I took the step to take a sabbatical from teaching and stopped serving in every other role I had here in Ecuador. For 8 months, I studied scripture, I read books, I learned to sit still and let God love me for who I was- His beloved child. This began my journey towards finding how I could intentionally serve other missionaries before they reached their own season of burnout.
In 2019, I began working as the Women's Ministry Director at English Fellowship Church in Quito. I loved the word of God and I loved teaching which seemed like a wonderful way to combine both. Yet God wasn't finished with me yet. When 2020, I started digging into member care and how to support others better. By 2021, God brought to me a tool that would do exactly as I had dreamed:
coaching-
the ability to empower other missionaries to be who God wants them to be by coming alongside them, helping them process, and encouraging them each step of the way.
In coaching, I have finally found my people.
"Our continued focus is to impact nations by upholding leaders on the frontlines of mission work to help them overcome the challenges and struggles they face so they can thrive and flourish in life and ministry."
