Katie is the digital content specialist for Feed My Starving Children, where she manages blog and social media storytelling. She has asked so many people to share their FMSC stories, she figured it was time to share her own.

This post is part of a series where Feed My Starving Children staff share their FMSC story. Follow along on social media with #MyFMSCStory.

I was 18 years old, infused with bravery and a sense of urgency, when I crossed the Sudanese border on the back of a camel.

Not even a year had passed since the attacks of Sept. 11, but that didn’t matter to me. I needed to connect with these people that I had read so much about. The ones being burned, raped and murdered, the ones being torn from their families and displaced from their homes by their own government.

The second civil war in Sudan had been going on since 1983, the year I was born.

Now, I was tumbling (rather roughly) through the desert in an old Land Rover, being followed by rebel soldiers armed with AK-47s — meant to provide protection for my church group as we distributed water filtration systems, medicine and sorghum.

I stood unknowingly on a mass grave and woke up one morning to an abandoned hotel that had been raided the night before, our group somehow waking unscathed.

There were babies too — the size of infants — who we later discovered were a year old, and once vibrant young men dying on a concrete floor with nothing but a thin blanket beneath them.

I filled out an entire journal in 10 days, but when I came home, fresh with tales of adventure and suffering, no one cared.

This was before Darfur – before the trendiness of caring about a fresh humanitarian horror. This civil war was was old, and tired. It was largely unnoticed, at least to college students in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2002.

I came home changed yet a little hopeless. I knew that spending 10 days in Sudan didn’t really do much for anybody but me.

The leader of the group assured me we were showing a group of suffering people that they weren’t forgotten by the rest of the world.

Still, I lived the next 10 years wondering what to do about it as the people and memories grew smaller and smaller.

But I’ll spare you the details of those 10 years and skip to the good part.

One day I realized that I loved writing and photography and all things storytelling. This led to a brief career in journalism that only left me wanting more. 

Then I had one of those "aha!" moments people are always talking about. Storytelling leads to awareness leads to change.

More than a decade after my experience in Sudan, I finally landed at Feed My Starving Children where I am nearing my two year anniversary.

My personal mission as the digital content specialist is to educate donors, volunteers and staff about FMSC's mission in an engaging and meaningful way. I truly believe that stories can feed kids -- well, that YOU can read a story and then feed kids. Storytelling leads to awareness leads to change.

I strive to honor people's stories through my work at FMSC and go beyond a simple narrative. Hunger isn't an identity. It is a part of the story. Maintaining dignity and knowing that it's NOT actually about us are the most important things a  storyteller can remember.

Thank you so much for reading, commenting and sharing. Thank you for being part of my personal mission within Feed My Starving Children. 

Do you want an FMSC story? Come work with us! Current staff — send your story with photos to social@fmsc.org. We can’t wait to hear your FMSC story.