My squad is in Estonia…I am not.

ATL: Ask the Lord.
Lithuania, Estonia, or Latvia. Any city. Any ministry.
Go and do whatever, wherever the Lord calls you.
This is my team’s ministry for the month of May!
 
I must admit that a month of ATL is a pretty sweet way to end the World Race. After all, this is kind of what I thought the entire Race would be like. I even asked for this last month. When we arrived in Riga, God was able to provide in amazing ways because we had no plans and great need. We had nothing, only Him. A month later, my team is in the same spot. Today, with nowhere to go, we sat in a park in Riga, Latvia surrounded by our packs figuring out where to stay tonight and what country to go to tomorrow. That’s normal, right?
 
This morning I woke up with a desire to really seek my Father and His will for my team this next month. I know that He has plans for us. He has things for us to do and people for us to meet. And I know that He won’t withhold that information but is faithful to respond when His children ask. As I mentioned earlier, the rest of the squad is in Estonia. We are the first squad to enter Estonia, so they are busy groundbreaking World Race partnerships with ministries there. But as we prayed yesterday and today, my team has felt led to go to Lithuania. None of us had desires to go there before and most had crossed it off the list a while ago. But the Lord has stirred in us a desire for this country; to go into Lithuania, another new country for the WR, and see what the Lord is up to. So tomorrow we will take a bus to the capital where we know of a church through some Latvian friends and go from there. We will pray and be obedient as God calls us to different ministries and locations. We trust He has things waiting for us. I am so excited to see Him provide and lead the way!
 
I only have one requirement for this month: that the Lord’s presence would go with us. I echo the words of Moses “if Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here”. I desire for His presence to be a cloud by day and fire by night, confident that we are walking in obedience and following the guidance of His Spirit. I really can’t wait to see what happens! I spoke last month that I want more of this in my life: less control and greater dependency on my Father, and here we are! Wooohooo!

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As we move into a new month, I want to share about last month in Liepaja, Latvia as well. Since we were the first squad in Latvia, this month was different than most. It was a lot of groundbreaking and feeling out the environment. We made lots of new contacts for future teams, discovered things that work well, and others that don’t. My city was located right by the Baltic Sea, which was awesome (check out our polar plunge video below), but the city was kind of dead since it was still really cold outside. Therefore there really wasn’t much going on or a lot to do. Our Pastor at the SDA church was awesome and so was his family. They work so hard to love their church and community! But since they had never had a World Race team before, they didn’t know how much ministry to give. Therefore, while we worked with a wide variety of ministries, there wasn’t much depth (especially for 13 people). Some of the ministries included: Pathfinders (similar to boy and girl scouts in America), making videos for the church, presenting at schools about different cultures, hosting community events, putting together a “Messy Church” service for families with young children, and working with the church’s baby school. See what I mean about variety? We did it all.
 

economic crash in 2008. My teammate Ga’nene and I reached out to the girls and met with them on a weekly basis. So every Sunday afternoon, we met to talk about our lives, the gospel, and our new identity in Jesus. Those talks were my favorite! It was God who provided a time for us to talk because at first there seemed to be too many barriers for it to happen. Praise God! So please be praying for my two friends, that they would have revelations of God’s love for them and His desire to provide for their families and abundantly meet their needs!

My second ministry was food finders with Aubree and Tyler which was too much fun! Every evening, our teams gathered for family dinners where we took full-use of the beautiful oven we hadn’t seen in 9 months! So twice a week, the three of us would head to the supermarket and outdoor market to buy all the food we needed for several meals. I really enjoy the challenge of bargaining, staying in budget, and interacting with the Latvian vendors. J While it will be glorious to be in Harris Teeter again, I will definitely miss the adventures of overseas markets and shopping! See other pictures below prayer requests!
 
Prayer Requests for May:

• For Team Ascend the Hill: Unity, extravagant love for one another, and choosing to invest in our last month
• For Myself: Security and peace in the Lord concerning future plans, a selfless and radical love for my teammates, and a greater desire for God’s presence
• Lithuania and the ministry God has waiting for us there!