Hey all, I’m Ashlee. I’m 21 years old and live in Colorado!  I’m a recent graduate from the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design. My major was graphic design but I love doing photography as well. I am horrible at anything math, or science related, but if you need a picture taken’ I’m your girl! I love designing, and being creative! While most people ask ‘what are you doing?’ after I graduated, I didn’t and still don’t have much of a plan other then the amazing Kenya Trip! I decided fundraising and working an hourly job that I worked in high school and doing some photography gigs would get me by until I left for Kenya. I would love to do design work for a non-profit (working for Toms is my dream job). I love to do design for a good cause, and not just to make it for the sake of design. Even working for a church and doing their design work would interest me. I am keeping my options open, but I am leaving the job search alone until I get back from Kenya. 

I have always grown up in a Christian home, attended church with my parents and to be honest I didn’t really care for it much. I was there because I had to be. Once I got the option to go or not, I decided that I didn’t want to go. It wasn’t until a hard break up with a boyfriend many years later that I had hit rock bottom. I had heard of a church about a half hour away from me from my boss believe it or not. They are a pretty big church, Flat Irons Community Church (2nd fastest growing church in Colorado) The idea of going to a big church terrified me. I didn’t think I qualified as a ‘church’ person. My boss, Joanna, told me of college  'community groups' the church had organized in different area’s of Colorado. Lead by other college students, we spoke about the service, our personal life issues and struggles and sometimes just had game nights. Yes, I was more then scared to go to these groups but I literally had NO friends and couldn’t go anywhere but up from there. I went to the group and never felt more welcome. It was by no means church-y, and it was okay to admit we had problems. It was there that I met some of my closes friends to this day as well as my boyfriend. It has been close to two years that I have been attending community group as well as church at Flat Irons. I also volunteer on a team called ‘next gen’.  A group of college students that help plan events for the college ministry. Many of you may think, your church has a college ministry? Yes, we do, a rather large one. An average of 500-700 students come every weekend to my church.  Our church is made up of around 12,000 people. I also volunteer in the children’s ministry on the weekends, watching the babies during services. I love the people, the community and couldn’t imagine my life without church. 

I had always had a ‘calling’ to go into the missions field but always found a reason not to. It wasn’t until this past year when I attended ‘Passion 2011’ in Atlanta that I knew I had to go. To hear people speak about making a difference in just ONE persons life to show them that God loves them was beyond amazing to me. I thought I could never do something that amazing. Would anyone care to hear what I said? Do I even know enough to show what Gods love really means? It was these questions that lead me up to the decision to go on a mission trip. I had heard about 7 day, 10 day, even month long mission trips, but I wanted to go on a trip that I could see the before, during and after affects of what I could potentially do through God in someones life. I went full force and applied to go to Kenya. I am SO blessed and so excited to be going. I can’t wait to meet all of you and see what we will experience together. I know it will be life changing and I couldn’t be more excited!