Hello! My name is Ellie, and after graduating high school in May of 2025, I will be going on the World Race Gap Year Mission Trip coming this August! I am beyond excited and blessed for the opportunity that God has opened for me. I will be traveling to Columbia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and South Africa for nine months. Alongside other racers, I will be spreading the good news and love of Jesus Christ like God has called us to do.
To begin, I will share a little about myself and my story. I am from Ankeny, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines. I have lived there my entire life with my parents and my two younger siblings. When I was in second grade, my parents started taking us to a church in Ankeny regularly, which increasingly became a very big part of my life. I became very involved with my youth group in both middle and high school as well as the church worship team. Eventually, I started to attend some church camps and mission trips. In the summer of 2023, I attended Rocky Mountain High in Estes Park, Colorado with my youth group. This experience strengthened my faith dramatically and was a major turning point for me and my relationship with Jesus as well as with some of my best friends. I was baptized that week at Rocky after realizing that I wanted Jesus to be a part of my life on earth.
That coming school year consisted of lots of growth, a new attitude, and many new opportunities. I helped launch a youth worship team at my church as well as stepping into another leadership role for middle school kids at my youth group. In June of 2024, I went on a mission trip to California to help with VBS at a church in a rough suburb of L.A. This was the first real mission trip I had been on and was an amazing experience. Coming home from this trip was hard for me, as I was really enjoying my time there helping the kids and others in need. This trip exposed me to a different kind of mission work and showed me how much of a difference I can make by using my time to help others.
My plan has always been to go to college right after high school, but I have always known that I would like to do some sort of longer-term mission work at some point in my life. Going into senior year, I did not have a clue of what college to attend or what I wanted to study. While applying to different schools, I felt like I was moving in the wrong direction, but I did not really know why. I have always been good at school, and I was excited to advance my education, so why was it so hard to think about going to college next year? It just did not make sense. On one Sunday morning, I listened to a sermon that had an interview with a World Race Gap Year alumni. For the rest of the week, I could not stop thinking about the World Race and how amazing it sounded. Soon enough, I was presenting this idea to my parents, doing research, and making long distance phone calls. I have had great peace of mind after accepting my position, I knew from the first time I heard about this mission trip that it was something I knew I should pursue. I truly believe the World Race is what God has been planning for me for all of my life.
The World Race is an amazing opportunity that I am so grateful and blessed to have come into my faith journey. By taking this gap year, I hope to…
- Experience God’s love and faithfulness in various new ways
- Learn more about God and who he is
- Learn more about myself through what God says about me rather than what society labels me
- Find where God is leading me in my life after the World Race
- Advance my ability to talk with new people that speak different languages and those from different cultures
- Build lifelong friendships and connections with people across the globe
- Strengthen my relationship with God
- Spread the Gospel
I am beyond excited to get onto the mission field and see how God reveals himself during my time on the trip. I would greatly appreciate it if you could keep me on your prayer list through the fundraising process as well as my time on the mission field.
Thank you for reading, have a blessed day!
Ellie Vaudt
