When I left for Slovenia I never imagined I would leave with a 4-week old baby back at home. The last month has been a difficult, surprising, and beautiful time. When Willow came home I had to make a lot of decisions about what I would keep and give up this summer – with constant travel booked, I knew I couldn’t make it all happen. I decided to forego every trip except this one with The Good Story for a lot of reasons, but leaving her at home is one of the more difficult things I have done.

I traveled to Slovenia through Venice, Italy, to photograph the Reach Global European Division Conference. Reach Global is a missions organization that has workers all around the world. Every two years they hold a conference to encourage, equip, and refresh these people who selflessly give all of themselves to serve hundreds upon thousands of people. To say it was an honor to in turn serve these missionaries is an understatement – I am truly in awe that I was able to participate in such an amazing endeavor.

The first few days of the conference were extremely difficult...