How I got involved with Asian Access...

In 2000 I was slowly growing in both faith and maturity as a Junior at Texas A&M University. As part of that process I was beginning to value missions through experiences such as the Perspectives course. I didn't think missions, or vocational Christian ministry was going to play any role in my future. None the less I was beginning to think missions were important to God so it should be important to me as well.  My church had several summer opportunities for the college students so I began to explore my options. As I was looking the decision came down to a trip to Spain or a trip to Japan.

Growing up in Texas there was always a pressure to learn to speak Spanish. In retrospect I wish that I had studied the language but my response at the time was to take German in High School and avoid the Spanish language as much as possible. I was not an anime or manga fan at all.  None of the usual reasons people come to Japan applied to me. The reason that I chose Japan over Spain for the Summer of 2001 was as simple as the fact that as I was deciding I thought to myself, "I hate Spanish." So in early spring 2001 I applied to go to Japan with A2 and started training...

-note to reader: I have since matured a bit and actually wish I had taken the time to learn Spanish when I was younger. Thankfully God redeemed my immaturity by using it to lead me to Japan.