“I knew who I was this morning,
but I’ve changed a few times since then.”
-Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

A multitude of words could be used to describe me, though I suppose there is much to be said in a name as well, so that is where I will begin. My name is Kellie M. Matthews. (You will note there is no ‘Y’ in my first name. That is because there is a distinctive difference between persons with the names Kelly and Kellie. Believe me: spelling makes all the difference in the world.) Kellie denotes an individual with spunk, a quirkiness that stems from the variation of the final letters in her name. She likes the obscure, the unique, the odd and different. She knows her place and what she wants in life (and bless the soul of the individual who attempts to stop her). She is the dusty adventurer craving books and history in a world of E-Readers and modernity. She is, essentially, very me.

A self-professed wanderer, I love exploring the world, discovering new places that broaden the mind and reveal wonders long forgotten in a modern world. Meeting people of cultures foreign to my own and delving into that fresh culture thrills me. I cannot settle for predictability and routine. I look for adventure.

Having lived overseas in Australia as a young child and then traveling across the United States and into Great Britain a bit later, I developed a thirst for travel early on. Living abroad became a life’s goal, an ambition that was never forgotten. By the time I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Liberty University, I was set to shake the American dust from my feet and fly into the unknown. An opportunity arose to serve as a volunteer at a missions school in Limpopo Province, South Africa. I felt the Lord calling me there, so I followed.

Thus began a journey, a novel exploration, into teaching abroad that took me into worlds most unexpected.