Hi, I'm Melissa Hintz, to the world I'm Melissa, to family I'm Missy.  I'm 21 years old and currently live in Baltimore, Maryland.  I love God with everything in me and want to be able to give more of myself and my ways over to Him every day.  I cannot wait to go on this trip to Africa!  It all started before I was even born.  My mother wanted another child and she prayed to God using Hannah's prayer (1 Samuel 1:11), she promised God that if He would bless her with another child then at the age of 18 she would give the child back to Him.  Well, as you can see God's answers prayers!  When I was 18 and 2 months I moved away from home to be apart of an Urban Discipleship Program and I haven't moved back home yet.

Even when I was a little child, people would come over to my Mother and tell her that they could just feel the call on my life to be a missionary.  I can't even count how many times while I was growing up that strangers would tell me that.  But if you know me, you know that I can be a little stubborn.  So from about age 7 to 15 or so anytime anyone would say or ask me if I was going to be a missionary I would immediately tell them "NO!"  But one day it just started wearing off, I was only saying no becaue I wanted to feel as though I had made my own decision and I wasn't doing what my Mom told me to do.  But when God wants something for you, He doesn't too easily give up.  Slowly but surely I started to hear that small quiet voice speaking to me and giving me a desire to want this.  At that time it was like I finally woke up from a deep sleep and all of a sudden all I could think about was how much I wanted/needed to do missions work, anything and everything.  After high school I entered into something called 'The Mission:Urban Discipleship Center' where I had the opportunity to do missions work for one year in Washington DC and 2 years in Baltimore City.  That experience has taught me more than I every thought it could but one specific thing it has done is give me more of a love for missions work and a heightened desire to work overseas.

So, that's where I am right now.  I feel God has brought me to the end of doing full-time ministry in the city and has used it to prepare me to get ready to minister in Africa.  I'm so excited to see what God really has planned.  Please keep me in your prayers that God would direct my path always and to make sure that I don't try to jump out ahead of God!