I've always struggled with finances such as saving, investing, and good decisions with my money. My family is originally from Africa and my dad had to go through 7 states to decide if Minnesota was the right pick or not but he ultimately decided to settle down here. I learned most of my financial etiquette from my father who himself isn't the best with money. He bought out current house which has a high interest rate and an expensive mortgage because he didn't have the best credit. Learning from his mistakes I try to be better with my spending and purchases with my credit card. I always make sure to use under 10% of my card so that my usage rate isn't too high and I make sure to pay it back right after buying something so that my payment history seems really good. Ever since I turned 18 which was November 6th 2025, I've been trying to build myself a financial future and be smart when it comes to paying for things that might be out of my budget. My biggest expense right now is my car payment which is 500 a month and while I'm trying to refinance it is difficult to pay for that and have enough to spend on myself. From what I've been learning is that life isn't free especially in America where fun costs money. I love to teach myself on financial freedom and see habits of people who been able to achieve that so that I can adapt that into my life currently and see where it brings me. With my current job it helps me save enough to pay for my car and have a little bit left to invest and play around with, since it's extremely difficult for me to pay for college right now at a young age around 14-15 I started saving for my own college fund raising approximately 8k which isn't a lot but it's more of the mindset of "this is not for right now but later." I believe financial freedom starts at a early age and from habits you see the grown ups around you doing. If I followed in my dads path I would most likely be in credit card debt owing more than I can pay on a student card but due to me teaching myself on how to spend accordingly it has definitely stopped me from wasteful spending.

Christianity isn't just a religion but to me its a way to express my love for God. I don't view myself as a just a Christian but a follower of Christ and I follow the Lord out of my own doing. Becoming a full-fledge Christian isn't easy and my journey was difficult, especially since I've been apart of this since birth. As a kid i never really understood Christianity, all I knew was that there was a God and a man named Jesus and the holy spirit. As I gotten older I attended a Christian elementary and middle school and I attended church every Friday. Since I left that school my freshman year of highschooler I started straying away from that and not giving much time to God. I used to have really bad sleep paralysis and there was one time I woke up and I wasn't able to move, I felt something on my back and on the shadow of my bed frame it looked so demonic and the first thing in my mind was "Jesus save me." I saw a bright light and then I woke up and never had sleep paralysis again. This experience made me turn my entire life to God as I knew he was real now and that I have no excuses now. I always make sure to listen and talk to him everyday and try to connect with him on a more spiritual level. I never planned on going to college in the earlier stages of my life as most of family went and told me that it wasn't worth it and that I'd be better getting a job instead. But as I learned more about the process and seeing people having happy lives in college it inspired me to finally give it a chance, and a major I really want to study is data science/analytics due to how much I love solving problems and looking at data sets and tables. I would love to work for a company like Google or 3M where they are always in need for people who can work remote or on site. This scholarship will help me achieve my goals and get to the place I've always wanted to go which is financial freedom. I know this scholarship is more than just money off of school but an opportunity to achieve more. In the future I want to be happy, I want a wife, kids, and a big house and I know how hard I have to work to achieve that goal. The way I was raised was that nothing in this life is easy or fair and I've accepted that fact full heartedly and I know that if you want something you have to go get it. Succession isn't a end goal but it's the experience you gain on the way to that goal. The process of success means more too me than all the benefits that come from it and I want to achieve so many goals that it seems impossible to do it in one lifetime. I don't want to be a nobody but I want to be someone that people can look at in a couple of years and say that he succeeded.

Embodying a life of service is more than just worship and prayer. It’s about living a life that you know Jesus has lived and trying your best to replicate that. I would say a way I embody a life of service is through my actions and habits but the way I think and the way I carry myself. I would love to bring up something that changed my life and that was the watching of a show called Vinland Saga. This show is about a kid named Thorfinn who is a viking and his dad dies to another viking, this viking who killed Thorfinn’s father takes Thorfinn under his wing, and Thorfinn wanting to avenge his dad is only doing this because he wants the honor of killing the guy who killed his dad whose name is Askeladd. Askeladd and Thorfinn spend a lot of time together and throughout the show they have a sort of mentor relationship, but Thorfinn hates Askeladd with everything in his being. Throughout the show we see them interact and we see Thorfinn killing and pillaging villages because Askeladd is telling him too. Askeladd then goes to die right in front of Thorfinn’s eyes and Thorfinn not being the one killing him took a part from Thorfinn that he felt he could never get back. Thorfinn then becomes a slave at a farm and he is empty, he doesn't feel anything and that his life is now worthless because Askeladd is dead and he wasn't the one who killed him. After a while we see Thorfinn gain his independence back and he says a line that has stuck with me since I’ve watched the show and that line is, “I have no enemies.” You would think this is somewhat of an obvious mindset but it’s more than that. I embody a life of service by living with that idea, because the idea of having no enemies is so broad but the way they present it in the show Vinland Saga is more than what meets the eye. Thorfinn saying this doesn’t mean that he has no enemies on the outside but internally we are all our own biggest enemy. Saying you have no enemies to me really means that life is too short to have enemies or ill intent and that I should live like Jesus and embody his works and actions. My education means a lot to me and I plan on going into Data Science/Analytics for my career and I would love to help churches and businesses with their Data and how I can use that to help them economically. I love helping others and doing it with my education will really change the way I view myself as I am just a servant too The Lord and being able to work for him would change me. I love the way education is viewed and the way you can really go far with certain degrees is so impressive and valuable to me. I want to embody the best version of myself all of the time every time and this scholarship will help me so much to achieve that goal.