Katie Walters grew up at Foothills. “My dad helped build this church,” Katie said. “My earliest memory was bringing my dad a lettuce sandwich because it was the only thing I could reach in the refrigerator. We would sit on the plywood stage together and eat lunch.”
“I wanted to go to a place where I felt recognized.”
When Katie reached high school age, both she and her twin sister, Abbie, explored going to different churches. They were looking for confirmation that Foothills was not just their parent’s church. “I wanted to go to a place where I felt recognized and that I was doing something important,” Katie shared. “When I came back to Foothills, Judy Buss was integral in getting me plugged in to children’s ministry and making me feel like an important part of the team.”
Katie went on to earn an Associates Degree, and a certification to be a licensed massage therapist, but her heart was leaning heavily towards missions work. “I put therapy work on hold and became an AWANA missionary for about four years.” But that door abruptly shut when she was informed by AWANA that she needed to become full time or leave the work. “That was one of the hardest things to work through when you think God has called you to a work.”
“For years I let someone else decide what God’s calling for my life was.”
Katie had part-time support raised, but she wasn’t ready to be a full time Awana missionary, and so she dropped out, feeling that perhaps God wasn’t calling her to missions work. “For years I let someone else decide what God’s calling for my life was,” Katie shared. “Recently I took a trip to Israel with an organization called The Daily Audio Bible. During one of the tours, they talked about the lies that we believe when we let someone else interpret what God wants for our lives. I didn’t realize that I had let that incident with AWANA dictate to me how I should serve.”
God really has called her to work with kids.
Being discipled by Children’s Minister Judy Buss has also played a big part in convincing Katie that God really has called her to work with kids. As a result, Katie devotes much of her life to doing just that.
I asked Katie if there was a specific point in time that sparked the desire to work with kids. “I was working in Martha Wilson’s 5th and 6th grade girls class,” Katie said. “I remember this one girl who walked into the small group I was leading, and she was a mess. I asked her what was going on. She told me that the day before, she had come home from school and found that the father figure in her life had hung himself in their back yard. She was the first person to see him and report it. In my inexperience as a teenager I asked her, ‘Why are you here?’” Katie didn’t mean to be abrupt, but she was curious why after such a traumatic event, the young girl would choose to come to church instead of staying home. “This girl looked up at me,” Katie shared, “and said, ‘I know this church is a place I can go where you will tell me about Jesus, that you love me, and I can come here no matter what.’” At that point, Katie was convinced she was doing a very important work.
God made me for that purpose.
Katie’s dedication to working with kids is a clear example of the Foothills mission to glorify God. “I have never felt more like I was doing what God has put me on this earth to do. Judy Buss has given me a platform at Foothills to teach on a weekly basis the timeless truth of the Gospel in a way that is relevant to kids today. God made me for that purpose, and to walk in that purpose each week gives me great joy.”