Shortly after my birth in a Thai hospital, my family moved to Laos to proclaim the Gospel among isolated villages nestled among hidden jungle valleys. From an early age, I formed close friendships among the children of our village’s bamboo schoolhouse. In the rainy season, during pockets of the sun’s sultry heat, I hand-planted rice in murky mud with my neighbors. On lazy afternoons, my friends and I gulped down fermented fish, green papaya, hot Thai peppers, and fried mango leaves. What a blissful life! In the beginning of one particular dry season, while water still flowed through rivers, my dad baptized me in a jungle stream surrounded by underbrush and secluded mountains. Yet despite my happiness and desire to become a missionary myself, I also observed the hardship and self-denial involved. Every morning, I would run down the stairs of our wooden house on stilts and find Dad alone. Months had passed and Mom still lay upstairs, deeply ill from jungle fevers. My eyes widened as I asked Dad again, every day, if Mom would die. She did not, but my heart formed an increasing desire for escape to an idyllic American life I imagined. The years passed, and in time, our mission led us to Sudan. There, as I studied in a bomb-broken orphanage-school, the gnawing shadow of glorious escapism crept further, and the missional vision grew distant, disheveled, and darker. The question inside my heart persisted. Would I surrender my future to God wherever and however He might lead? The thought terrified. If I surrendered, I thought, my dreams of a happy future would vanish. In this inner turmoil, surrounded by Sudan’s shriveled sorghum fields and the orphanage’s crumbling walls, a new determination flowed into my heart. Wherever and however Christ might lead, I would follow, even if the journey brought hardships and disappointment. A year after this new-found resolution, my family moved to Indiana to begin a global role with our organization. Suddenly, I found myself in America as I had dreamed. That fall, my younger brothers and I launched Club 7:9 to prepare youth for cross cultural missions. The club became an immediate success. Among other skills, Club 7:9 trains in gospel-proclaiming methods. I remember once, on a flight to New York, sitting next to a shy young woman with black hair and a green neon sweater. As the plane descended, I mustered courage and told her about Jesus. Her eyes watered as she listened, but though God worked through my words, I realized my gospel sharing skills still needed development. Several months later, God granted an opportunity to offer my summer for missions in the Caucasus Mountains, a rural region between Georgia and Russia where over a hundred Muslim and animistic tribes lie scattered upon isolated slopes. As I considered the trip, my familiar reluctance returned – I sure was enjoying myself in America. Yet, I offered afresh my summer to God and accepted his challenge. I never regretted the decision. There, on the Georgian border and in view of the Russian mountains, three Georgian youth and I co-hosted a gospel-proclaiming party for unbelieving teenagers. We prayed deeply for the forgotten tribes, and in my heart, I developed plans to reach them. Now at the end of my senior year, I look forward to growing my ability to proclaim the gospel. But I cannot accomplish the goal alone. As I considered my next steps, Patrick Henry impressed me with its outstanding emphasis on communication and leadership. These skills are just what I need. I’ve been accepted to attend Patrick Henry College this fall where I plan to study Integrated Math and Natural Sciences. Following college, I hope to work in full time Christian ministry. I am particularly burdened for people who have never heard the gospel before and especially among Muslim and animistic communities. Thank you for the opportunity to apply for the Patricia Lindsey Jackson Foundation scholarship.

Born in Thailand, I grew up deep in rural Laos, surrounded by rice fields and rocky sharp mountains. When I came of age, my mother taught me the ABCs and sent me to a nearby Lao pre-school where I stood dumbly amid the local babble. In the afternoon, Ting and other friends would come play, and – at first in spurts – I learned to speak Lao fluently. My rich childhood and out-of-the-ordinary homeschool adventures have fueled my future missional dreams and planned course of study in Economics and Business Analytics at Patrick Henry College. In 4th grade, we lived in a stilted house in a remote jungle village. The house had no ceiling, but Dad put a clear plastic sheet between the rafters and the patchy tile roof. If you looked just right, you could see the sky through the glitches in the tile matrix. That year I did quite well with Astronomy – though more from spending nights outside stargazing with near-zero light pollution than anything else. Between math, science and writing, we read Rasco and the Rats of Nimh. Those rats must have had cousins at our place for when we looked up towards the roof tiles, we saw enormous rats running to and fro throughout the length of the house as they padded their way over the clear plastic. By the time I hit 8th grade, we moved to a house near the muddy Mekong River. At that house, I enjoyed staring across the river into Thailand, my mind floating away into the flotsam and jetsam of future dreams. In our family, one subject came before everything – Bible, a full half hour of personal reading daily. One sultry morning, I flipped to the New Testament and was reading along fine until I hit the verse, “Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to all nations.” It was as if Jesus had pointed his finger and told me to go. For weeks, the verse wrestled with my imagined future. Finally, I decided to give my future to the Lord and obey his call, and that is how I won a huge personal victory. In the last couple of years, I started thinking about colleges. To prepare for missionary work, I’d have to push myself to new extremes, and Patrick Henry College seemed just the right place. One of my favorite highschool subjects was economics, and I particularly enjoyed the book Whatever Happened to Penny Candy. National economics in Laos in those years went bonkers. Inflation soared with the value of the currency crashing to 40% it’s previous value. Gas shortages meant cars stretched down the road and out of sight for those few gas stations that remained opened. I enjoyed tracking the economic principles behind it, and Patrick Henry College’s Economics and Businesses Analytics major caught my attention. I’ve applied, been accepted, and hope to use business for the glory of God among the nations.