In the middle of the summer, Brianna Weldy packed a bag and travelled across the ocean to completely different country. Nappanee Missionary’s youth group had planned a trip that focused on helping others through the Christian faith. They held a church camp to care for the country’s children directly and teach them the gospel. They went on trips of street evangelism to reach out to others in the area.

Weldy has been attending church her entire life. Over the years she had developed a routine; church with her family on Sundays and youth group her friends on Wednesdays, sitting in sermons and listening to others talk about how God.

Two years ago, however, she decided to change things up. It started with a trip to Chicago; a big city completely different from where she was raised. She proclaimed her faith to total strangers, not knowing the effect her words would have, not knowing if one wrong word could change the course of the conversation entirely. But despite every anxiety, every worry, she loved it.

This love drove Weldy to travel to the Dominican Republic–a place where the comfort of her home, the love of her family, and the safety of the walls of her church were all miles away.
Weldy soon learned that those things weren’t the only things that resulted in love, safety and comfort. These people in the Dominican Republic had all those things but had nothing like the life she had.

“I learned to be selfless. Going into the trip I felt very self-centered and very much like I never paid attention to anybody except myself,” Weldy said. She said this calmly but with passion burning in her eyes. The things she had seen in the Dominican Republic had impacted her immensely; her expressions made that clear.