"I came to college without any faith and no relationship with God.

After a rough first semester, and a rough start to my second semester in college, I felt overwhelmed and done. I ended up having a rough night and the next day as I was coming back from class, I took a different route than normal. 

I used to walk up a set of stairs and always take a right. For all of the previous semester, and for a good almost two months into the current semester, I took a right.

This day I took a left and walked by the student hangout center.

I encountered people playing Super Smash Bros. I remembered playing that game on the Nintendo 64 when I was younger, so I decided to watch them. This was the spring of 2019 and I decided to start regularly hanging out with that group of people and I became friends with two people who were part of a Christian group on campus called Chi Alpha.

I heard them talk about it and about how sometimes they had to stop playing the game to go to something called "small group" or go to something else called "the experience". 

I did not understand it, but eventually I became curious and asked if I could come to the experience.

The Chi Alpha director there was so excited (probably due to him praying for me since I had been hanging out with them since March and this was now October). He offered for me to also go to a retreat that weekend. 

I was unsure as that day was a Tuesday, and they would leave on Friday. He told me it would be free for me to go, and hey, since it’s free I’d go!

I went to the large group gathering that day where I met a girl who came up to me and started talking. She loved the Marvel dress I was wearing as she loved Marvel too. 

When I went on the retreat, she was there and had a huge impact on my desire to learn more about God. She was the first person in my life that I could remember that genuinely wanted to be my friend.

Not for anything I could give her, but because of who I was.

Her love for Jesus, the way she talked about Him, and just her genuine display of what it meant to love others, made me want to know more.

After that, my relationship with God exploded and for the first time in my life I felt like I belonged.

I felt loved and cared for by a God who loves me and sees all my struggles and challenges, but chooses to love me anyway.

I started chasing after Jesus that October, and in November or early December I ended up giving my life to God and got baptized in the Holy Spirit. I was reading my Bible and all of a sudden I felt arms wrap around my back, and an overwhelming flow of love enter into me, and I broke down sobbing my eyes out. 

I became so in love with God and in February of 2020, I helped other people on their walk with Christ and could not have been more excited or in love with a God who loved me for everything I had been through.

I became passionate about seeing people come to know the God that loves me so much, and in March of 2021, God called me to be a missionary.

It was one of the rare times I have audibly heard His voice tell me something, and I remember feeling so much joy and peace with that statement that I knew it was true, but I had no idea how I was going to do it.

Fast-forward to 2024, where I ended up feeling called to help college students hear and learn the gospel and so I decided that I wanted to be a staff member for Chi Alpha as a missionary, and that's what I'm going towards now.

Throughout my time in college I have seen many students receive the Holy Spirit and seen Him move in miraculous ways. I want to keep seeing students impacted by God because I know how life was like without God, and I know just how much better life is with God. 

I know the goodness that God has in store for those who believe and trust in Him!"

- Shannon H.

If you would like to help support Shannon on her missionary journey, click here: https://giving.ag.org/donate/700001-29b363.