Though only 26 years old, Kayla Mueller had long been a humanitarian.  According to her father, she discovered as a young person that her life’s purpose was to ease the suffering of others.  She grew up in a small mountain community in Northern Arizona, but worked to bring awareness to her town of global issues of injustice.  She worked to educate community members about HIV and AIDS, she protested genocide in Darfur, Sudan, and volunteered at the women’s overnight shelter. She traveled to Palestinian territories, Israel, India and France doing humanitarian work.