Vasilia Studios

STORYTIME…

For my entire life, I’ve struggled with placing my identity in things other than the Lord—in career, academic performance, appearance, men, friendships, etc., so the concept of identity has always resonated with the strings of my heart. When I was twenty, I spent a year pursuing missions, photojournalism, and music with an organization called YWAM. While still in the training phase in Kona, Hawaii, I felt led to do a few styled photoshoots for some gals who didn’t seem to walk with a lot of confidence. I would do their hair and makeup as well as take them to the YWAM “boutique” where you could pick up free items of clothing. Together, we would find a cute, flattering outfit for their shoot and then create magic together. After doing this for three gals, people started coming up to me and telling me they noticed these women walking with a newfound confidence—and to this day, one of them still uses that photo as her profile photo (eleven years later!). I felt the Lord speak to me during that season: “I’m calling you to step into your own royalty so that you can call other women into theirs.”

At the time, I specifically had a heart to make an impact in the lives of women who’d been affected by human trafficking, but the Lord led me to Panama instead, where we would be working with orphanages and prisons rather than the human trafficking industry. I trusted that the Lord was leading me there for a reason, and with the wisdom and hind sight that comes from maturity, I now know why. In this country, a vicious cycle of teen pregnancy and fatherlessness prevails—leading to a prevalence of 11, 12, and 13-year-old single mothers. Every week, we visited a girls’ orphanage to love on a bunch of teens and pre-teens, many of whom already had babies of their own. There was this one girl, Mileydis, who I felt led to love on a little extra. She didn’t seem to walk with a lot of confidence, and I just knew she could use some TLC. Quickly, she began beelining it to me every week when my team would arrive, and we would pass the time by playing games and conversing within the bounds of my broken Spanish. At the end of our time in Panama, our team planned a photoshoot for the girls, doing their hair and makeup and making them feel beautiful before capturing them on camera. We obviously couldn’t do anything personally with the photos because of privacy reasons, but we made CDs for each girl and gifted it to them before leaving. My experience at this orphanage taught me how early issues of identity start—and how important it is to speak value into little girls so that they know how to recognize that feeling of being valued...as well as recognize the feeling of not being valued. Upon going home, I knew there would be more of this in my future.

Who knew it would take over a decade of struggling with my own identity, as well as overcoming quite a few debilitating obstacles (injuries, car accidents, etc), before it was time to take the next step. The Lord knew I needed those years to refine my character, hone in on my photo and writing skillsets, focus on rhetoric, social justice, and women’s studies in college, work with a handful of non-profits in a variety of industries, root myself in the fashion industry, get grounded while writing within the worship/devotional industries, become established as a business owner, expand my network—and most importantly, walk in my identity as a child of the King as I was humbled with physical battles and forced to anchor myself in him through it all. It truly brings me to TEARS to look back and say, “Only God.”

On November 25th, 2024, after years of dreaming about Vasilia Studios and facing subsequent spiritual warfare every time I tried to take a step (literally…), I said, “Enough is enough. It’s time.” I chose to take “six-ish” months of eliminating distractions, putting up guard rails, and protecting my purpose for this season—which was to pave the way toward starting this photo ministry. A couple months into this focused season, I found a note in my calendar for May 25th, 2025. It said: “I don’t know what’s going to happen on this date, but I just like the sound of it (writing this on 5/17/24)”. After sitting on this for a couple weeks, I felt like I was supposed to schedule our first shoot for this date. A tall order—as I had four work trips, a move, and tax season standing between me and May 25th. But, schedule it I did.

And, wanna hear the coolest thing ever?? This date JUST so happens to be six months, to the day, from when I had chosen to take that vague six months to work toward Vasilia Studios. November 25th-May 25th! And, to top it off—last week, my photography work took me back to Hawaii…the place where the preliminary seeds of this ministry were planted eleven years ago. This was my first time back to Hawaii in that entire timeframe! As I stepped off the plane, looked at the familiar Hawaiian airport carpets, felt the humidity in the air, and saw Kona Brewing Co out of the corner of my eye, I became emotional as this realization washed over me like the waves I was about to swim in. As my feet took me to baggage claim, tears streamed down my face over the Lord’s goodness and how surreal it was to be back on the turf where it all started. Ain’t God cool like that??

Our first shoot will benefit the six women who are currently rehabbing at GenerateHope—a San Diego based non-profit that provides safe housing, healing, and trauma-informed transitional programs to female survivors of sex trafficking. As a photographer, I've volunteered and partnered with GenerateHope for years, so I'm truly giddy to be kicking off this dream with a non-profit that means so much to me. While I plan to start small, I look forward to seeing where this will grow. I’m simply a vessel, partnering with God in this vision to speak life and identity into women…whether they’ve been trafficked, whether they’re currently unhoused, or whether they’re little girls floating through the foster care system. Each one is loved and seen by God—and my heart is to be his mouthpiece. To bring a throng of prayer warriors together to pray into the vision. To build a team of creatives around me who will make these gals feel extra special through professionally styled hair, makeup, and outfits. To use my camera to capture the beauty that he created them to embody. And to hopefully watch women walk with just a tad more confidence than they did the day before.

Thanks for following along on the journey. And, if you take one thing away from my story so far, it’s this: If you have a calling on your heart, stay faithful. Yet, don’t rush the process. It could take you one year, eleven years, or 81 years…but no matter how long it takes and how hard the journey gets, I encourage you to fight on your knees. The battle belongs to God. One day, you’ll be able to look back at all your steps and you’ll clearly see that you’ve been called “for such a time as this.”