All Jennifer ever wanted was to be was a missionary, and at fourteen she boarded a bus for the Lord’s Boot Camp in Merritt Island, Florida. There she received training in how to evangelize the unsaved using drama, puppets, and music. She then spent eight weeks trying to convert Catholics in the Philippines, cementing her desire to be a full-time missionary one day. Three years later, Jennifer felt an urgent call to graduate high school early and go to Bible college, where she met and married the first boy she ever held hands with. She was just 19. They divorced six months later.

Struggling to pursue her call despite the setbacks, Jennifer joined Youth With A Mission and later moved to Mozambique to try her hand at supporting an orphanage and dating the founder of the mission at the same time— the truest form of missionary dating there is. After an awkward breakup, Jennifer spent another six months in Uganda where she finally realized that if she truly wanted to make a difference, she must return home to California, get educated (for real this time), and begin again. 

Starting over wasn’t easy. Going to school and working alongside happy, healthy non-Christians for the first time challenged Jennifer’s previously held belief that only Christians could live an abundant life. Following graduation, Jennifer landed an internship in South Sudan that shook her understanding of what it means to follow God in hard places even further. By the time she was evacuated in December of 2013, her internal faith struggle mirrored the country’s nascent civil war. Seven months later, Jennifer found herself responding to a new crisis: thousands of people displaced by ISIS in Iraq. As Jennifer navigated this devastating reality, her religious baggage came back to haunt her, until eventually, she returned home again, this time with the aim of figuring out where it all went wrong.