After close to a year of traveling, I had seen things in the world and in myself, both good and bad, that I had never noticed before. I was struggling daily with pride and insecurity, homesickness and loneliness, with the burden of picking up my cross and following Jesus. This journey produced a new hunger for redemption in me.

I'm trying to learn how to listen to people and how not to think that this is all I am. It's not going to change the fact that at home I'm going to put away the clean dishes, and I'm going to have to be nice to my siblings. It encourages me, but it doesn't define me.

After close to a year of traveling, I had seen things in the world and in myself, both good and bad, that I had never noticed before. I was struggling daily with pride and insecurity, homesickness and loneliness, with the burden of picking up my cross and following Jesus. This journey produced a new hunger for redemption in me.