Myrinda grew up in Kansas on an Angus cattle ranch. She loved staying up all night baling hay with her father. Myrinda drove a little Massey-Ferguson tractor, and her father drove a John Deere. His stash of Mountain Dew kept them awake when their eyes grew heavy with sleep.
Life on the ranch kept her busy, making her church attendance sporadic. “I always felt like I was looking for something,” said Myrinda. “I didn’t know what, and I went through a season of questioning God’s existence.” Her mother prayed for her, but for many years it appeared as if God had turned a deaf ear.
During her first two years at a community college, Myrinda battled overwhelming anxiety. She consulted a psychologist and had a physical examination. Nothing they proposed helped. By her third year, her anxiety was so severe she could not eat, often felt sick, and thought she would have to leave in the middle of class. Desperate for help, she accepted an invitation to attend a Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship meeting. She concluded that the people at the fellowship only wanted to convert her and didn’t return.
Myrinda went home for Christmas vacation but could not forget the things she learned at the Chi Alpha meeting. When she found one of her mother’s gospel tracts lying on a table, she prayed the Sinner’s Prayer printed on the last page. “I asked God to do something in my life if he really existed,” said Myrinda, “and then made a commitment to read the Bible and see if anything would happen.”
When she returned for the spring semester, she moved in with the friend who had invited her to the Chi Alpha meeting. She did not plan to participate in the larger Chi Alpha gatherings but was comfortable attending the smaller Bible study her roommate had started in their dorm room. “I found the people who attended the Bible study to be the most genuine people I had ever met,” said Myrinda. “When they prayed, they believed Jesus was alive and listening.”
She realized how much she had changed when she attended a prayer meeting alone. Normally, her anxiety would have prevented her from going. “I asked them to pray for me but didn’t tell them why. The elderly man who prayed for me said, ‘God, help her not to be anxious about social interactions.’” His prayer comforted her and gave her the assurance that God knew about her struggle.
One day, Myrinda realized she no longer feared social gatherings. The nausea she felt during class disappeared. Making new friends came easily. She had planned to teach when she graduated, but now she longed to be a missionary.
The year after she graduated, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. As she watched the national news coverage, she felt an urgency to help the people of New Orleans. She contacted the Red Cross to volunteer, but the organization would not accept her until she completed its disaster training class. While she waited for another class to be offered, Hurricane Rita caused more devastation in Louisiana. Her urgency to help intensified, but the Red Cross still didn’t have a class available. Then a guest speaker came to her church with news of an interdenominational effort to send relief teams to the Gulf Coast. Myrinda volunteered.
In October 2005, she arrived in New Orleans with seven team members. When she wasn’t busy gutting houses, she was handing out water and hygiene products. Myrinda laughed. “I had worked hard on my father’s ranch, but it was nothing compared to cleaning out houses damaged by Katrina.” She wanted to stay in New Orleans, but commitments in Kansas forced her to leave.
She returned to New Orleans again in December 2005 and in March 2006. Each time she came, it was more difficult for her to leave. By the time she returned in August 2006 for a four-month commitment as a relief worker, she was making plans to stay.
God fulfilled her desire to be a missionary when Pastor Anthony invited the relief workers to his home for a hot meal and Bible study. She accepted his invitation and quickly bonded with the Christians who attended the weekly study. Her future was uncertain when she returned home for Christmas, but God opened a door for her to remain in New Orleans when Pastor Anthony’s assistant telephoned and invited her to become part of a church-planting team. The pastors and staff pioneering the church were full-time missionaries. She leaped at the opportunity to join them.
Myrinda began her missionary work helping the homeless in the tent city that housed victims of Katrina’s wrath. The city eventually found shelter for the tent dwellers. After the last tent was taken down, she walked the streets of New Orleans, sharing Jesus with anyone who would listen.
“God continues to amaze me by his obvious hand on my life,” said Myrinda. “He gave me a passion to love the unloved, to seek the lost, and restore hope to the hopeless.”
When Myrinda’s anxiety grew unbearable, she sought the wisdom of man. Their advice failed to help. In desperation, she turned to God for a solution. She tasted to see what God would do, and he did not disappoint her.
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