Dear Friend,
The World Race has easily been one of the toughest experiences of my life. Not just the being away from home, the lack of amenities that we all take for granted back home, but the stories that I’ve heard from the people I’ve met and the stories that I have been a part of have been hard. Even before I left my greatest fear about the Race was returning home. I knew that God would change me through this experience and that He would rock what I knew as “normal”. What I never anticipated was the bonds that would grow between some of us. What I never thought of was just how much my relationship with God would change. He’s used so many of the people on my squad, if not all of them, to bring about the changes He’s desired in me. He’s used them to draw me closer to Him, into greater dependence on Him, to breaking Him out of the box that I put Him in.
The relationships that I’ve had the privilege to form over these past eleven months have been some of the most formative of my life. How? When you live with people for months at a time under conditions that are strange to both you and them it tends to bring out either the best or the worst in people. I have had the benefit of being around a group of people that when they’re in tough situations it brings out their creativity, sense of adventure and who rise to the challenge to find joy. God’s blessed me tremendously throughout my life with people who carry these attributes, but to be around people who constantly turn to Him for their guidance and strength, who give Him the credit in those circumstances for their ability to make the best of it, well that’s new to me. It’s an honor to witness and learn that kind of humility and strength of character from people who practice it daily and who practice it with grace. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not perfect, none of us.
I think back to about thirteen months ago when I had the option to go to another squad, and I wonder at how different my race would have looked had I gone with them instead. We may not be perfect as individuals, and we’re sure not perfect as a group, but God’s plan for each one of us to be here on this adventure that revolves around Him and the spreading of His love, that is perfect. It’s perfect that we’re each here following, or doing our best to follow, His good and perfect will for each and every one of us.
Our race is coming to a close in matter of days and hours. This is an accomplishment that, to be totally honest with you, I didn’t know if I would succeed in. That’s the beauty of it though, I’m not succeeding, God is. There’s no way that I would have made it through this without the grace and ultimate planning of God. It was His strength that guided me through, His love that filled me, His grace that held my chin up and Him that drew me closer to Him throughout this whole thing. The truly incredible thing about the race is, that each and every one of us is walking away having visited many of the same places, but each one of us will walk away with different stories, having learned different lessons, with different relationships and having been moved in different ways. As different as each of our experiences have been though, there will always be this one grand experience that brought us all together. Threads of lives that have been woven together in a grand tapestry for only a short time until they separate to go and be a part of some other part of the grander picture. What a blessing.
I have met some incredible people over the course of the race, developed relationships that I pray will never end, while there are others that I know will have to wait to continue until we meet again in Heaven. I am still afraid of coming home because it means that the nature of some of those relationships will change. I will no longer wake up in the same room as some of my friends. They will be states, or even countries away. God reminds me that it is only the physical nature of the relationship and that when it comes to relationships it deals more with matters of the heart. What a blessing to worship a God who loves us so much that He answers our prayers and worries as we type them or think them.
Thank you to those of you who have read through out these eleven months, I’m sorry that I haven’t shared more recently. Thank you for your support, prayers, and thoughts. It means a lot to me. I look forward to hearing from you soon, and to seeing some of you soon. God bless you and I pray that you continue to walk in His truth and love.
Sincerely,
Ann Duncan
