The NOAH Project in downtown Detroit has been blessed with leadership by these four persons left to right: Amy Brown (Executive Director); Brandon Powell (former US2); Chelsea Spyres (former US2); Chelsea Williams (current US2). NOAH is a Global Mission Fellows Placement. ~Facebook photo/Brandon Powell.
CHELSEA WILLIAMS
The Book of Fellows
Recently I had a great conversation with a friend. It was one of those talks that started out not going in a particular direction, but turned into something I most likely won’t forget. Kind of like the day we had. We had gone to church that morning at a small country church and figured, since we were out of the city, we might as well go to a nearby lake after the service and get some rest in nature. On our drive back to Detroit, the conversation started. We were enjoying our slushies and Taco Bell, just chatting about anything. Somewhere along the way we ended up on the subject of my dad.
For those of you who don’t know, my father suddenly passed away when I was sixteen years old. On top of being in the middle of the most grueling academic load I had faced, I was now presented with the loss of my dad, a man that I viewed with so much respect and love. As you can imagine, this made the end of my junior year significantly more difficult than it already had been. Adjusting to this change and many more life changes that came in the next couple of years presented many challenges.
From my junior year of high school to my sophomore year of college, there were many times that I felt as if my life were falling apart. Moving away to college itself wasn’t hard, and I adjusted well and quickly. Unfortunately, my pleasant transition couldn’t last forever. There was a period of time before sophomore year started when I wasn’t sure if I would be able to return due to a lack of financial aid. Thankfully that was taken care of, and I was able to go back to school. However, during the course of that year, I began to experience great stress in almost every aspect of my life. I was getting some of the worst grades I’ve ever earned, growing distant in many of my relationships, and in October of 2012, I got the news that my mom had been diagnosed with colon cancer. It seemed as though the bad news would not stop rolling in.
Last Updated on August 23, 2016