I grew up in the church. As a child, my parents brought me every Sunday. I always considered myself to be a good Christian because I went to church. However, as I got older, I began to drift away from church. I began to view it as a hassle and something unfun that I had to get out of the way every Sunday before I could go hang out with my friends. Then in sixth grade my parents enrolled me in a private Christian school while all of my friends went to the local public school. This made me angry. I felt like I would never see them again. I felt like we weren’t going to be as good of friends. I was scared of going to a new school where I didn’t know anyone. All of my fears were misplaced though. I made really good friends over the years and also still hung out with my old friends.

However, at this school, I began to pull away from not just church but God and Christianity altogether. I hated the mandatory Bible classes. I felt like I was having Jesus shoved down my throat. I hated the way it was presented and taught and deep in my spirit I knew that this was not the way it was supposed to be at all. I had a feeling that this way of teaching was wrong and that there was so much more. Despite this, I didn’t care enough to pursue it and decided to just pull away from it all. By the time eigth grade started, I was beginning to hate Christianity. During my sophomore and junior years in high school I began to return to the Christian faith little by little. I still felt that it was my parent’s religion and that I didn’t have to have anything to do with it. As I began to think more and more about the rest of my life, I started thinking about death and what would happen to me. I hoped that I would die peacefully so that just in case God was real, I could slide in the back door to eternal life right before I died.


This was my mind set before I went to Costa Rica for a program called Generation of Promise. I was taught a new form of Christianity that I had never heard before. I learned that God doesn’t love me any less because I’m a sinner. Nothing I can do can change the amount of love that God has for me. God wants to have a relationship with me before I start worrying about following His rules. I was always taught by the Church that a man must put his sin behind him before going to God. But the truth is the complete opposite! I only spent one month in Costa Rica but I came back a completely different person. The new me wishes to pursue God and His plan for my life.