My name is Patrice Deaton and I am from Bulverde, Texas a small suburb of San Antonio.  I have an amazing family consisting of my mom, Cynthia, dad, Mark and sister, Taryn.  Both of my parents are pastors and they have always taught me that there is freedom in living a life with Christ.  I understood the teachings of Christ and had a friendly relationship with him up through high school.  After graduating from high school I was serving at a summer camp when I felt the Lord tugging on my heart to commit my life to ministry.  With this commitment and call on my life I began to take my relationship with the Lord much more seriously.

As I began to seek a closer relationship with the Lord I was led to many awesome opportunities to serve and grow while at Texas A&M University.  I spent a majority of my college career hanging out with teenagers through Young Life and Christ United Methodist Church.  As I began to finish my five-year stay at A&M I felt like the Lord was asking me for a year of my life to serve, so I began looking for opportunities to do so. 

Through that search the Lord led me to Doulos Ministries in Branson, MO where I went through a yearlong discipleship program called Lead Time.  Part of this program consists of living with troubled teens who are part of a program called Shelterwood, a Christ-centered residential care facility.  Daily I was challenged to be self-less while living with 15 teenagers and 8 peers.  I learned a lot about the love and the heart of God through those girls.  I also learned a lot about trusting the Lord with my life. 

My commitment to Lead Time/ Doulos was only a year, so as the end of the year started to come around I began to pursue future ministry opportunities.  I ended up pursuing a job doing youth ministry at a church and really thought that I would end up there.  I took a day to pray through that decision, and now what seems so clearly, heard the Lord tell me to not take the job and to wait.  That was not the answer I was expecting to hear when I sat down to communicate with the Lord that day.  That challenged me to continue trusting the Lord with my life. 

Through this time I continually came back to Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding: in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."  I daily had to believe and trust that the Lord had my best interest at heart.  As I continued to trust I ended up pursuing the World Race. 

It seems like a crazy thing in the world's eyes to abandon a great paying stable job with a secure future to pursue something so unknown and risky.  So I decided to follow the encouragement of the book Dangerous Wonder to Jump First and Fear Later.  I want to be crazy so I took a huge jump off the cliff of reason and ended up here doing the January 2008 World Race.  Whoop!!!  I am excited to have the opportunity to serve the Lord through this incredible opportunity.  Please pray that I would continue to trust the Lord no matter what comes my way this year.         Peace