Hi! My name is Esther/Essie De Velasco. In 8th grade, God put it on my heart to do missions. That year I evangelized to all my teachers and constantly tried to drag peers to church. In the years following, I started leading Christian clubs on campus because I wanted everyone to have the chance to hear the Gospel. All throughout middle and high school I would pin mission organizations onto my bulletin board in hopes to intern for them or one day work as one of their missionaries. Over the summer of 2022, I had the privilege of interning with East West. I got to work in the office and see the incredible amount of work that goes into running a mission organization and sending people. Through this internship, I was also able to go on multiple short mission trips, help lead the teams, and begin serving through translation. This past summer I had another cool opportunity to intern, but for a missionary in Malawi, Africa, and got to see what it is like to be a missionary.

I am really excited to share that this summer I will be interning for Voz y Manos. They are an organization in Ecuador that uses agriculture, water projects, and medicine to serve the community and share about Jesus. I will be on the team that brings water and sanitation to tribes in the Amazon. Through this internship, I will get to experience a glimpse of what it would look like to take a career to the nations. Currently, I am studying civil engineering at LeTourneau University with the hope that I can use it similarly, to get into a closed-off nation so that I can serve and share the Gospel with unreached communities.