In September, there's a mission trip to Nicaragua houses to build and people to serve.

I want to go. But I can't get there without help. And that's why I'm writing this.

This is the story of how a driven, successful, chronically busy new dad ended up at the feet of Jesus and why getting on that plane feels less like a choice and more like the next step in something God started in me a year ago.

I was the kind of driven that people respect.

Up early. On my laptop before most people had coffee. Closing deals for the company I worked for, flying out when I had to, flying back to be home for my family. My wife was deep in her nursing school journey, pouring herself into it the way she pours into everything. And we had just welcomed our daughter into the world this tiny, precious human who needed us completely and loved us without condition.

From the outside, that's the dream. That's the finish line most people are running toward.

And I was living it. Fully. Genuinely. I loved my wife. I loved my kid. I was good at my job. I had nothing to complain about and I knew it.

That's what made it so confusing.

Because somewhere in the middle of all of it between the sales calls and the diaper changes and the flights and the dinners and the bedtime routines something was missing. Not missing like something had been taken. Missing like something had been replaced, like the heart posture I once had of working unto the Lord had quietly given way to chasing things of culture and not of eternity. And the busier I stayed, the longer I could go without noticing.But a new baby has a way of holding a mirror up to your life. You look at them and you think: what am I building for you? Not financially. Deeper than that. Who am I becoming so that you have something worth inheriting?

I didn't have an answer. And I couldn't outrun the question anymore.

I was building a career that most people would say seems exciting on a path to earning $200–300k a year, moving fast, stacking wins in the AI industry. A field that people are craving to get into. My wife was thriving, pursuing her nursing career with everything she had. I was proud of her. I was proud of us. From the outside, everything looked exactly the way it was supposed to look.

But there's a version of emptiness that doesn't announce itself. It doesn't crash your life or take anything away from you. It just settles in quietly like a slow leak until one day you realize that the thing keeping you going isn't joy or purpose or faith. It's just momentum. And momentum, eventually, runs out.

That was me in 2025. Successful. Numb. And desperate though I wouldn't have used that word at the time, for something real.

"I had everything the world said should make me happy. And I had never felt more lost."

Depression and isolation don't always look dramatic. Sometimes they look like a man who's fine at work, fine at home, fine in every conversation and completely hollow the moment he's alone with his own thoughts. I pressed everything down. Every question I couldn't answer. Every ache I couldn't name. Every whisper that said there has to be more than this.

So I started prioritizing God again.

I found a book called Radical by David Platt. And it undid me. Platt asks a question that most of us in Western Christianity are never brave enough to sit with: What if the God we've built our faith around isn't the God of the Bible at all but a God we've quietly shaped to fit our own desires, our own comfort, our own American dream?

I put the book down. Not because I disagreed but because I knew he was right. And knowing he was right meant everything had to change.

The Jesus of Scripture didn't offer comfort. He looked at fishermen, tax collectors, ordinary men with ordinary lives, and said Leave it. All of it. Follow me. And they did. That was the faith I wanted. The kind that actually costs something as scary as that may be.

Within months, God called me to do something I never would have done on my own: walk away from the career. Walk away from the trajectory. Leave behind the six-figure years and start over not with a better hustle, but with a kingdom-first purpose. It made no financial sense. I did it anyway. Because when the God of the universe asks you to follow Him, the only honest answer is yes.

Platt's book ends with a challenge, go somewhere you've never been and serve the people of that location. Leave the safety of what you know. Find people who have nothing and bring them the only thing that matters. I prayed. I asked God to open a door. And He opened this one.

I was introduced to S3 Ministry. A mission team dedicated to building houses in Nicaragua. For someone who has spent the last year learning what it means to actually follow Jesus not just believe in Him this trip feels less like a decision and more like an answer.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid. There's a knot in my stomach when I think about it. But I've learned something about fear this past year, it isn't the enemy of faith. It's actually the proof that faith is needed. God didn't promise to remove the fear. He promised to go with us through it.

This trip is God's idea. So I went to Him first and said: if this is You, can you provide the funding for it. This story, my story, is me doing my part. I'm trusting that He'll do His.

There's one more person I have to mention.

My grandfather. The man in the photo at the top of this page. He's gone now, but the older I get and especially this past year the more I understand what I was watching when I was watching him. I didn't have the language for it then. Now I do. He was a man who followed Jesus. Not perfectly. Not loudly. Just faithfully. Every single day.

I learned what it looked like to actually follow Christ through him. And now that he's gone, I feel it the weight of something being passed. A baton. His baton. Like he ran his leg of the race with everything he had, and now it's in my hands.

I think about him when I think about Nicaragua. And I know that if he was still here he would be jumping for joy over this.

Thank you for reading this far. Thank you for every prayer. Thank you for every dollar. You are not a transaction in a fundraiser. You are a partner in something eternal.You're not just sending me to Nicaragua. You're going with me.