My 25th birthday was spent traveling from Mendoza, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. It was a great day, mostly spent on a bus with my entire squad as we drove through the beautiful Andes Mountains. We even had a snowball fight at the border—if you know me, you know how much I LOVE snow, so getting to play in the snow in May was such a gift!
We arrived at the bus station in Santiago late that night and after collecting our bags we went to find our new hosts. Within ten minutes of getting off the bus in Santiago, I realized my wallet had been stolen.
Great. What was I going to do now? Of course, our fundraising covers all of the important things like food, lodging, and travel expenses, but we live on a pretty tight budget on the World Race and there are still a lot of things that aren’t included in that. Seeing as we’re only in each country for a few weeks, having a new card sent to me from the States wasn’t really going to be an option. It wasn’t long before I realized there was really nothing more I could do; the only thing left to do was to surrender it to the Lord.
Thankfully, I still had my passport. That was a relief. I did my best to stay optimistic. I knew I only had three more months left on the Race and I was going to have to make it work and trust that God would take care of everything.
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Seeing as the majority of our race has been spent in tropical climates, our team wasn’t exactly well-prepared for the cold weather we’ve been experiencing in South America. Everyone kept talking about how it was only going to get colder next month in Bolivia, and while my whole team went out and bought warm clothes and winter jackets, I just prayed. I knew the Lord wasn’t going to let me freeze. I could either be stressed out and frustrated with my predicament or I could choose to see this as an opportunity to step into greater dependence on Him.
I did my best to choose the latter.
While we were in Chile, our team had the opportunity to partner with a house church in Santiago, and let me tell you, these people were some of the most giving people I’ve ever met in my life! The unity that this church has and the way they all came together to make sure our team was taken care of for the entire month blew me away.
So needless to say, when they saw how unprepared we were for the cold weather (they literally freaked out every time we wore chacos with socks, or “socko’s,” as we like to call them) everyone jumped in to help!
Scarves, leggings, long-sleeved shirts, socks—everything we needed was given to us! One woman bought boots for all the girls on our team. Another woman literally took the scarf from off of her neck and wrapped it around mine. Whatever we needed, we were given. We didn’t even ask for any of it. I was so inspired by how these people truly were functioning as the Church in so many ways.
And that’s not even half of it.
Two of our hosts, Nicolas and Belén, would be getting married in a few months and would not be moving into their new home until after the wedding. Guys… they literally gave us their new HOME that they didn’t even live in yet for the entire month that we were there, and everything—I mean EVERYTHING—in that house (tables, chairs, dishes, mattresses, blankets, curtains, heaters, even the OVEN!) was given to us by different people in the church to use for the month. The entire church came together and each person contributed something different to make sure we had everything we needed.
Again—stunned!! THIS is the Church. This is what Paul talks about in Acts when he says the early church had everything in common:
“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:32-34).
Every day, we would eat lunch with different people from the church and they would all take turns driving us from place to place. When we were sick, they’d give us tea and make us try all their crazy home remedies (one night everyone on our team was FORCED to eat an entire spoonful of onions—literally, they held us down and forced us!). They even went above and beyond by taking us on adventures to the coast and to spend a day in the mountains. Again, each contributing to make this a month we would always remember and treasure.
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One Saturday, about half-way through the month, we were out doing ministry in the community. We had set up different stations where we would offer to take blood pressures and pray for people, and Victor (one of our friends from the church) was even offering free legal advice. Everyone was utilizing their unique gifts to reach out to the community. It was great!
I was just sitting there waiting to take some blood pressures when one of the women from the church, Alicia, came by to help. She then proceeded to pull out a brand new full out winter PARKA and asked,
“Does one of you need a jacket?”
Ok, God.
At first, I didn’t want to accept it. It was too much. Weren’t we there to serve and help them, not the other way around? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was letting my pride get in the way of something really amazing. I knew that this was a gift straight from the Lord, and I had to accept it. She had no idea that my whole team had gotten jackets and I was the only one who didn’t have one. She had no idea about my wallet getting stolen. I had faith that God was going to take care of every one of my needs, and here He was taking care of me. So I knew I had to accept it. I knew that to not accept that gift would mean I was denying a gift that came straight from my Father. So, I put it on. And guess what? It fit perfectly.
I was then able to encourage Alicia by telling her about what had happened and how God was clearly working through her that day. How cool is that?!
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I’ve been on this race for 9 months now, and if I’m being honest, most months I’ve been pretty comfortable. Because I always knew that no matter what happened, I always had my own security to fall back on. But this past month, that security blanket was completely stripped away. I can’t tell you how many times this month I just wished I could be home. When I got bronchitis for the second time in less than a month, my team leader asked me if I’d be willing to go to the doctor. I told her I’d think about it, but I didn’t think I needed to. The truth was I didn’t know how I was even going to pay to go to the doctors without relying on other people to help me. I was so tired of relying on other people! I knew my teammates would have been more than willing to help if I needed them to, but I was so over it. I wasn’t going to do it. I’d finally hit the wall I’d heard about so many times on the Race, and I didn’t want to do it anymore.
One night I had a fever and one of my teammates offered to pray for me. Within hours of her praying over me, my fever was gone. Once again, God was teaching me about dependence. Who needs a doctor when you have Jesus? Again, He showed me that His power is ENOUGH for me! He showed me that His love can transcend all borders and that He is more than capable of taking care of me.
So month 9 was all about stepping into a whole new kind of dependence with the Lord. It was about trusting that He is able and WILLING to take care of all my needs, and that He loves me enough to show me that. It was about getting to see His Church in action, and seeing how beautiful it is when the Church actually functions the way the Church was always intended to function, by allowing Him to work and love through them to meet the needs around them.
I know I still have A LOT to learn when it comes to being dependent on the Lord, and I fully expect Him to continue to show me more and more of what that looks like throughout the last two months of my race and beyond. This terrifies me. But as much as this terrifies me, I realize that stepping into greater dependence on Him is the only way that we can step into greater intimacy with Him, and for that, it’s all worth it.
