Moving abroad // Kaylei Ward

Kaylei Ward 

Ginger. It’s the smell that can bring up a thousand emotions. It’s the smell that can take me back faster than any other smell. It races me back to a faded pink building and black hair snuggled against my neck. It races me back to alligator tears, finger paint, and fits of giggles. Ginger races me back to China. I have read “God calls you where the world’s deep hunger and your deep gladness meet” I just always questioned what that would look like for me.

When I joined the Start Experiment, I knew that my gladness was not meeting the world’s hunger. I was stuck in a job that focuses on first world problems, was a dead end, and I knew that it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I told my group that I just wanted to find the next step. With that God opened the door, the large door to change my life. The day after the experiment I received an email asking me to come and move back to China and help out. Excuses were futile, and fear was pointless. Any time I wanted to talk myself out of it, Jon’s email would show up first thing that morning.

I was invited to go back to the place that stole my heart five years ago. To walk back into the faded pink building and snuggle with the unloved and the unwanted. To share a love so much deeper than one I could ever show on my own. In one month I will fly to China and be the hands and feet of Christ in the best way I know how. I pray to be broken and drained of anything that is me and only reflect Him. My gladness is loving the orphans of the world. My audacious goal is to put orphanages out of business and to find a home for each child. I’m beyond excited to START and take that next step, loving and holding one child at a time.