Top Tree Peach: An Angel's Legacy

By Kelly Anne Broderick

While overseas on an 11-month mission trip traveling across 11 different countries, Kelly Anne Broderick shared updates on her life with family and friends through a personal and honest online journal. She wrote about her spirituality, experiences, the people she met, and the places she visited while openly acknowledging her struggles with self-confidence, faith, and grief. This book shares her stories and bares her soul to all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664210516

Kelly Anne Broderick

Kelly Anne Broderick was a beloved daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin, teammate, and friend. She was also a fantastic storyteller with a passion for big adventures and uplifting others. Tragically, she was taken from this world by a drunk driver in November of 2018, leaving behind people all over the globe who mourned her passing. In both life and legacy, Kelly Anne continues to inspire friends and strangers alike through her love for the Lord and her joyous and infectious essence.

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Copyright © 2020 Kelly Anne Broderick.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher

make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book

and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy

Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by

Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks

registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

Scripture marked (ALB) comes from the Albanian Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-1050-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-1052-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-1051-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020921421

WestBow Press rev. date:   11/18/2020

CONTENTS

Dedication

Foreword

What Are Your Dreams?

Kingdoms

How Training Camp Changed Everything

My Packed Backpacks

Albania, Here I Come

Head, Shoulders, Knees, And Ow

The One Where I Painted A Mural

Month One Done

My First Night With The Refugees

My Fourth And Fifth Night

The Peace Container

My Last Night With The Refugees

Rejection Letters

Breaking Chains And Gaining Freedom

Zimbabwe, You Are Beautiful

Falling Down And Looking Up

Wool Allergies, Sunburnt Toes, And Peaches: My First Week In Lesotho

A Wedding In South Africa

Surprise Filipino Bible Study

Some Things Are Worth Melting For

Pining Through Pruning: Part 1

Fighting Through Climbing: Part 2

Finishing Through Peaching: Part 3

A Month Of The Unknown

How We Met Vanessa

Dear Uncle Jack

Checklists Never End The Way I Plan

There Is A Chicken In My Classroom

There Is A Spider In My Shower

Where Does The Joy Go?

Daring To Be A Hot Dog

Cambodia – A Month Of Memories

Ending The Race Is Like Ending A Day At Disney World

My Morning As A Vietnamese Wedding Gown Model

Dear Future Racer: Part 1

Dear Future Racer: Part 2

I’m Coming Home – What To Expect!

Dedication

For Kelly Anne’s amazingly strong sisters, Shay and

Cari, who, in helping hold their family

together, have shown themselves to be every bit

as fierce as their middle sister was.

For Lauren and Connor, whose love for their friend

is the reason this book exists and will

forever provide the legacy Kelly Anne never thought she would have.

For our Kelly Anne and all who miss her and can still feel those

enormous and engulfing bear hugs.

She never lacked in joy to give, and we love who she became.

Always and forever our Kelly Angel,

watch over all of us down here.

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FOREWORD

When this book’s words were written, Kelly Anne was serving on the World Race, embarking upon an 11-month Christian mission trip throughout 11 countries. Hundreds of people followed her blog posts for the time that she was abroad between 2015 and 2016, reading updates on her adventures and sending online encouragement, but not me. As Kelly Anne’s mom, I always promised myself I would read her stories when she was safely back home and out of harm’s way. I did not know at the time that, only two short years after she returned from her travels, my beautiful daughter would be killed on November 24, 2018, in a vehicle collision caused by someone who chose to drink and drive. She was only 27 years old.

Kelly Anne and I had many conversations about how she never felt she was reaching the full potential of what God wanted her to accomplish in her life. It broke my heart that she couldn’t see just how amazing she was. At her Celebration of Life service, more than 500 people attended, including classmates, teachers, and athletic coaches from elementary school through college. Kelly Anne had known and cared about each person throughout her life, so they traveled from all over the world to remember her and share what she meant to them. It is my hope that Kelly Anne now knows that she lived her life doing exactly what God wanted her to do and that her love and friendship truly made a difference in so many lives. I have come to believe, through a lot of prayer, that God took her to be with Him on the last night of her life as a well-deserved reward for her ministry here on Earth. Although I miss her every second of every day, she is now exactly where she belongs...in Heaven.

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WHAT ARE YOUR DREAMS?

I recently had a friend ask me what my dreams are, meaning what are the deepest desires of my heart. It was a strange question, in that I have not been asked about my ‘dreams’ specifically since I was about 10 years old. It got me thinking about dreams and goals and pursuing those deepest desires, and then how beautiful it looks when you witness someone who is doing just that. They are, in short, free, and it is wonderfully visible in their lives.

When she asked me about my dreams it came after a conversation about our career paths and how I had been wrestling with whether or not I had chosen the right one. Now, my favorite part about this friend is how much she cares about my heart and brings out that child-like faith in me. So, she didn’t ask me the normal question of, Well, what would you do if you didn’t do what your whole adult life has been leading towards?

Instead, she asked me, Well, then, what are your dreams?

I told her I had been so stuck on one idea for so long that I couldn’t even think outside of the box and come up with one dream for myself. She drove me to a coffee shop after work that evening, sat me down, and told me to get out my journal and dream.

My list ranged from physically walking where Jesus walked to being an artist (a dream continued from childhood) to owning my own apple orchard. Some were more realistic than others, but it didn’t matter, I was letting my heart and mind go anywhere it wanted for the first time in a while and it was incredibly freeing. I mean who doesn’t want to realize that one of their deepest desires is to work on or own an apple orchard? I didn’t see that one coming, but hey, that’s what happens when you dream. You never know what is going to come up that you hadn’t considered before, but now know how giddy it makes you to think about. I dare you to sit down and just dream.

Rereading the list I made that night, two of my dreams stood out the most to me.

1) Never lack in joy to give.

2) Love who I become.

I realized my path is already known by my Creator but much unknown to me. So much of my identity has been caught up in how my future career will define me. I have often thought of how I need to bulldoze my way to get there and be successful, that I pass over the risky ‘road less traveled’ ways to get there and miss out on the joy of the journey.

With that, I dream of reaching a point where I will love who I become no matter what I am doing because I am overflowing with joy doing it. So I decided, for the time being, to dive headfirst in a completely different direction than what my life was originally headed towards. A direction that will be filled with adventure and Jesus and love and joy, thus, enter in the World Race.

I will be going to Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

11 months, 11 countries, 11 new opportunities to serve. I am not fully aware of the specifics yet, but I will be keeping this blog as an update for all who want to follow me along in my excursions. I can’t promise it will be eloquent, but I sure hope it will be encouraging, as well as entertaining.

It might sound crazy, insane even, to live out of a backpack for a year, have a sleeping bag as a bed, and go on what is sure to be the hardest mental, physical, and spiritual trip of my life, but I have no fear. For almost a year I will be a missionary, I will get to serve and love people well and make an impact in the nations as my job. Talk about a dream.

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KINGDOMS

It’s been a week since I moved away from the city that I called my home for the past six years to return to what was my home for my first 18 years. I expected the transition to be easy and comfortable, that I would slip back in like I hadn’t missed a step. Though, the thing is, I have missed six years’ worth of steps. I have spent them walking in a completely different city becoming a new person, and now I am back wondering how I can fit my new self into an old mold.

The old mold isn’t a bad one, it’s one that’s easy to fall back into, one all familiar faces here remember me by, but a reflection of a former self. It’s hard to be a new person around old places and friends. So it’s time to do away with trying to put me in an old mold or even make a new one. I have discovered that I am ever-growing and should not put those limits on myself (the picture of me busting through a brick wall yelling, HI-YAA! is a good visual representation of how I feel).

Gainesville is where I graduated from college and where I became an adult.

It’s where I realized that I needed to be serious about my faith and of what it meant to follow Jesus without abandon by witnessing other people do just that.

It’s where I joined a sorority (didn’t see that one coming) and helped start a Greek ministry.

Where I worked in a hospital and realized my dreams were not what I thought they were.

It’s where I still lived out my glory days by playing intramural sports and could run stadiums under giant jumbotrons and national title signs.

I found what real community looked like, and I made solid friendships that saw me through depression and also were willing to adventure to whatever crazy place I had most recently discovered.

Gainesville gave me my people and gave me a place to come home to.

Over the past month, I set out to say goodbye to the city. I made sure that I went to all of my favorite restaurants, nature spots, and holes-in-the-wall that I’ve discovered during my time there, and more importantly, saw all of my favorite people. For nostalgia’s sake, I even gave it a name: KA’s Gainesville Goodbye Tour.

It’s good to have something and someone so hard to say goodbye to. More importantly, something so wonderful to look forward to. I’ve spent much of the past month reminiscing about the life and community I had built over the years, and I have been fearful of what was to come next for me. By now I was supposed to have started grad school and been moving forward in a career. However, per usual, God’s plan was not my plan. Hence, my move back to Jacksonville and then my move to Serbia in September and the other 10 countries that will follow over the next year, and then the unknown to come after that.

KA’s Gainesville Goodbye Tour sadly came to an end and I said a prayer to keep the cops away as I got into my car packed so tightly that I could only see out