On October 13th, 1989 Findlay, Ohio (probably the smallest city in the country) I, Lauren Gabrielle Rodgers was born. When I was 6 months old we (my mom, dad & I) moved back to Lansing, Michigan where they had both gone to college, met, married etc. That's where I grew up, went to church, was home-schooled and hung out at the MSU University with the college students in the Navigators.

In Sunday school, I always knew the right verses, I always behaved during the church service, I sang all the songs, was polite and sweet when talked to... Occasionally, on Sunday afternoons. I got invited to my few close friends' houses where we would have anything but boring times.

On school mornings, I got up at around 7:30, did all the chores on my chart, and then was at my desk in our basement at around 8:30, where I stayed for 4 straight hours until lunch time. After that, I would keep myself (and my 2 younger brothers, one of whom has ADHD) entertained until dinner, riding bikes around the neighborhood, and discovering every aspect of the word "imagination". After dinner came reading with my dad, and then bedtime around 8:30 pm.

I guess you could say I lived the almost-perfect American life.

Then! Sometime in the year 1999 my parents made the startling announcement that we were going to move sometime the next year to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela (a country I'd never heard about before) that was supposedly where "the Durgins" (a family I'd also never heard about before) lived in South America. Well, I couldn't really think of it all as a reality, just some strange dream that my parents would surely wake out of soon.

I was wrong. That year I made my first international flight, after packing up our bags an heading to Chicago to take a plane down to Caracas as a way just to see what we were getting ourselves into. As we were headed to the airport, our cab got rear-ended. We were already a little late and this caused an even bigger problem. A policeman came out to hear the story and take down some info and after a 40 minute delay, we were able to make our way to the airport (thankfully the cab was still able to drive). When we got there, it was packed and the line to the "Caracas" booth was jammed full with only 20 minutes till take-off. Thankfully we made our flight after getting transferred to the handicap line, and that night ended up in a hotel in Miami due to plane troubles.

To make a long story short, we survived Venezuela, coming back home with a much more vivid insight on the poverty and overpopulation in a 3rd world country (and not to mention severe sunburns).

After going to Colorado Springs, CO for missions training and Spanish lessons, we started announcing to all the churches that we planned to move to Venezuela (after standing up and doing a little skit me and my brother had to memorize) and asking for their support.

So far so good, until we got a phone call from the Harry Russel Durgin Jr. (a.k.a. Mr. Durgin) announcing that they (meaning we too) were no longer going to live in Venezuela, but were going to move to Brazil to help the Navigator ministry there. Well, our house was up for sale, things were in boxes, passports were secured, and furniture, nightstands, and toys were all sold. We made all our announcements (again) and everyone finally figured out that we were, actually, moving to Brazil, where we were going to live in rainforest huts, go around naked, spear for fish, and share the gospel to savage indigenous tribals. Actually we ended up in an apartment in the middle of a pop.: 1. 3 million, thriving metropolitan city, 45 minutes away from the pop.: 18.6 million city of São Paulo, almost 3 times bigger than NYC.

In 2 weeks we bought groceries, mattresses, Jell-O and milk all in the very complicated foreign language called Portuguese (once again, a thing we’d never heard about, except maybe on National Geographic episodes).

2 More weeks went by (complete with Portuguese lessons 3 hours a day) and we bought a car, and then a house on the same day with 50 Real (the Brazilian currency) bills, which were worth about 20 US Dollars.

I started 6th grade knowing how to conjugate 1 of 12 different verb forms, count to 100 and recite half of the alphabet. Today, after almost 3 years of no friends, struggling with school work and answering the phone in Portuguese, I can officially say that I have friends, speak the language fluently (in which I take tests and read books) and lead an almost-perfect Brazilian life.

So, there it is. My story. A missionary girl in Brazil. But I guess, despite my less than normal circumstances, I live a pretty normal life. I call my friends, put off doing my homework till the last minute, and chat online with the friends I wish I was with.