Julia first felt drawn to North Africa at age 18, but she’d left home to travel the world, funded by a luxurious, if morally questionable, profession.

“All the time I was looking for something,” she recalled. “Something was missing inside of me, and I was trying to find the real love.”

One night while travelling Julia couldn’t sleep. Pain pierced her heart, and she couldn’t move or speak. Recognising that she deserved to die for everything she’d done wrong in her life, she prayed: “If You really exist, if You really love me, help me now, and I will follow You.”

“I discovered in Him what I was looking for, that kind of love I was looking for so much,” she said.

Julia decided to follow Jesus, but her decision cost everything—her job, her money and, most painfully, her boyfriend. Depressed, she moved in with her sister, praying for divine direction. One day, she heard an IGD worker talking about North Africa. Suddenly, she remembered a deep desire from six years prior to travel there, a wish she hadn’t understood at the time.

On her first trip to North Africa last summer, bathed in God’s provision, Julia developed a love for the people she encountered. Visiting a refugee community, she “was able to feel a little bit how His heart is beating.”

This year, Julia returned back to serve among the underprivileged people groups.

“Although there were many battles in preparing for this trip, the Lord taught me once again what it means to be complete, and how I can be fulfilled,” she said.

Again, ministering among refugees, Julia felt her heart break for “the suffering and pain these people have to live with every day… Many families are torn apart, their material needs are very high, and every day they are living with fear.

“It is painful to see people suffering, but God reminded me of Hebrews 12:12: ‘Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees’(NIV),” she explained. “I wish that God will help us to fulfil these words, so that we can comfort them.”