I am sitting here in Botswana, Africa, typing this blog and reflecting on my life these past eight or so months. I have lived in huts, tents, churches, hostels, and schools around the world. Here is just a small list of things I have encountered this past year on the World Race:
- Mosquito bites up and down my body because houses around the world don’t shut their doors or windows…ever
- Eating rice on rice on rice on carbs on carbs on carbs because they are the cheapest and most available foods
- Having consistently filthy feet, because I walk everywhere, and many places do not have nice paved roads, just bumpy dirt paths
- Flooding underneath my tent because it torrentially downpours every single night in Guatemala
- Taking dirty, crammed public buses everywhere because we don’t have cars or any means of private transportation
- Using tin toilet stalls (basically a wooden box that empties into a hole in the ground) in Africa that is open in the front to the public road, so you wave to passersby while you use the bathroom
- Showering with buckets of ice cold water because showerheads don’t exist in villages
- Sleeping on sleeping pads for months on end which are basically just inflated pool floaties that tend to get holes and deflate
- Eating in unsanitary kitchens where you can see the rats and mice scurrying around in the rafters
- Getting woken up endlessly at 4:30 in the morning by roosters who don’t actually know when the sunrise is or by village people plowing their yards at the crack of dawn
And among it all, I can only respond by saying, “Thank You, Jesus!” Because through it all, my life has been transformed, and I have been blessed beyond all measure. I can’t believe the Lord would choose me to experience all the richness of His creation and His people around the world. Here are some examples of what makes all the hardships more than worth it:
- The giggling little child who is wearing tattered clothes and has ringworm in their head and who sits in your lap with a smile that can light up the entire room in Swaziland
- Church service in India in a cinder block building about the size of my room in America where people are crying out in love and awe to their Maker in Heaven
- Serving food to hundreds of people who are so grateful that Christ provided food for their hungry stomachs in the Philippines
- Walking in redeemed safe houses for women and children in Cambodia that were once disgusting brothels that sold them
- The dirt lot that I got to help plow which will become the Christian high school for a group of twenty orphans in Guatemala
- The worship nights under the stars which remind me how incredible my God is
- Seeing Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes at a Christmas party in Thailand which will be given to kids who have never had a Christmas present
- My incredible friend, Sihle, in Swaziland who is blind and has AIDS and who I got to hang out and jam to music with like he is ailed by nothing
- The blind and abused woman in Nepal that danced with supernatural joy after we prayed over her and told her how much God loves her
- The night I got to share the Gospel to a small village in southern India under the stars and then prayed over the people listening
- Movie night in a crime-ridden neighborhood in Nicaragua which shared the message of Christ’s redeeming love
- The incredible landscapes Jesus created around the world: mountains, waterfalls, savannas, deserts, volcanoes, oceans, and rivers and that Jesus chose my eyes to see them all!
- The nights whereby I have tangibly seen the Father’s redemption and love in my teammates who have spoke life into me, the way He created community to be
- Healing and freedom over people in several countries who have been shamed and plagued by their pasts simply by the life-giving words of Jesus
- Sunrises and sunsets everywhere
- The days I get to enjoy a nice Americano, because most third world countries drink only instant coffee, and filtered coffee is a mythical creature
- Seeing the miracles that took place when God raised $16,255 for me through friends, family, and people I don’t even know in only eight months
I could go on and on. The Lord has blessed me this year. I don’t deserve any of it. But something I have learned this year is that God sees me as His precious little girl whom He loves deeply. He wants to give good gifts to me. He wants to take me to work with Him around the world, which is just what He did by taking me on the World Race. Yes, some days I miss the comforts and people of home. But the blessings far outweigh the sacrifices. I feel like I am ruined for anything less that what He has for me. Nothing in this world, or at home in America, will satisfy like Jesus does and like His amazing plan for my life does. Thank You, Father, is not enough, but it is all I have to offer. So thank You, thank You, thank You.
