A huge part of the World Race is learning to trust God. Learning to let go and learning to accept the fact that we as humans are not in control and that instead the creator is in control. We learn to trust that God will take care of us and meet are needs, and we learn that what is best for us will happen, whether we like it or not, because after all, it is God’s will not ours.
I have realized since moving out of America that we, as a whole, are way too comfortable with our lives to feel the need to change or to ask God for things. Americans lead a life of self sustainability where we provide for our selves, and the thought of asking God to provide for not only our everyday needs, but also for monumental things can easily become something that isn’t always present in our minds. Growing up in America, sure I’ve had my struggles, everyone does. But there is an enormous gap between the mediocre things that we ask for in our comfortable lives in America and the things that we ask for when we have no other option but to pray that he shows up. In America, I would pray that God would provide material things, or things that make our lives comfortable. On the race, our whole dynamic of what we pray for changes drastically, and it forces us to put every ounce of our faith and trust in God that he is capable and that he will provide for every single one of our needs. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to be…
So what happens when God shows up? What happens when you lead a life where you need to fully trust that every necessity will be provided, and not only do you believe, but it happens.
VSquad is in Cambodia this month, and Team Illuminate is doing something called ATL, or ask the Lord. In this month, we do not have set ministry contacts, and instead are traveling all over the country looking for people who are doing work for the furtherance of the kingdom, but who have not yet been discovered by AIM or the World Race. Everyone has mixed emotions about this concept, but for me, it was a doorway to the most perfect and exciting adventure that I could have the entire race. When we were in Vietnam last month, we officially decided that we would be the team in charge of ATL here in Cambodia during the month of December. We had a few days of debrief in Siem Reap before the other 5 teams headed off to meet their contacts in Penom Phen, leaving only our team in Siem Reap armed with only a few potential contacts within the country and the faith that Jesus would show up for us this month in ways crazier than we could ever imagine.
We had decided before debrief began that we would like to spend a few extra days in Siem Reap and try to find contacts here, simply because all of our other teams were based on the other side of the Country, and I felt a pull to find a Christian community in this place as well. Other than that, we had no official plans for our time in Siem Reap. We knew no one here, we had nowhere to stay once our debrief was over, and it really became a time when we needed to rely fully on the lord to provide for us. On the last day of our debrief, we decided that we needed to do a prayer walk around the area where we had been staying just to get in the swing of what ATL month is supposed to be about. Up until that point, we had only turned right out of our hotel, and had never been past our hotel to the left. For whatever reason, we decided to go left that day.
After walking along the main road for about 15 minutes, passing numerous hotels, hole in the wall restaurants and side roads, I stopped dead in my path. Kat came up beside me, and I realized that we were both staring down the same side road. I’m not even sure that I would have considered it a road at home. We could see for a short distance that it was lined on either side with small shack like houses and the little stores that people tend to have in the front part of their houses. At first glance, there was really nothing special about this road, it looked just the same as every other one we had passed, or so we thought. Kat spoke up first and asked if we could go down the road, and I immediately said yes. I later learned that Liz had also had the same inkling that we had, but she had been standing behind us, so I hadn’t realize it at the time. We turned down the road, and after dodging motorbikes and stray dogs for a couple hundred feet, we ended up in front of a tiny house with a banner hung on the outside. The banner had a picture of a child on it, and simply said ‘Samuel’s House.’
I wish I had known the impact of that moment while it was happening, because that moment was when our month shifted. As we poked around the small house, and the grounds we quickly realized that it was a small Christian school. That moment of realization is the moment that set our month of on a completely different course than it could have taken. In that moment, God showed up, and our doubts about whether or not he would provide for us during this time faded instantly. The woman who lives on the grounds called her boss, the director of the school, who immediately came over to meet with us, and after some discussion, we made arrangements to have an official meeting with him on Monday morning. He also pointed us in the direction of an International church that was just down the road from where the school is located. We attended the church on Sunday, and through our attendance, we were able to make two additional contacts, and set up meetings on Monday as well. Out of those meetings, we have found three amazing potential contacts for future racers. In addition to that, we were given food, free transportation around town, and even offered a place to stay had we not already booked out hostel. GOD SHOWED UP, and our attitudes adjusted from a place of ‘I hope he shows up this month’ to ‘God is going to show up big for us this month.’
It’s crazy to think about how perfect God’s timing is, and how everything that happens in our lives is so intricately woven together that one tiny wrong move could change your whole life or the whole outcome of the situation. I realize that that sounds a little dramatic, but think about it, if we had not listened to that tiny voice telling us to turn left, to turn down that road, to invite ourselves into the little school off the beaten path, our month would be completely different, our race would be completely different. Not to mention how drastically different the lives of those children would be if we had not stumbled upon that place that day. What if future world race teams are able to have such a profound impact on the children in these communities that they grow up loving Jesus so much that they want to go out into the world and share his love with others. What if these children grow up and raise their entire families in the Christian faith simply because of the impact that racers will have on their lives, simply because we stumbled upon that school one day, all because God loves us and we trusted him, which is the most simple concept of all.
I’m going to venture to say that at the beginning of this month, we had not all completely bought into the fact that God would provide, at least not in huge ways. It’s a learning process to be able to fully trust that your every need will be provided for, especially when you have grown up in an environment like the States where most people don’t have the experience of needing to put that trust in him. This race has been a crazy, hard, intensely beautiful journey, and we are only in month 4. I am thankful that we are able to experience ATL during our last month together as Team Illuminate. I am thankful that we are learning to trust that God will provide for our every need, from the tiniest things to the life changing things, and I am thankful that we serve a God that is showing up in every single thing that we are doing this month. We are so blessed. ————————————————————————————————————————-
I am still in need of a little over $5,000 in order to be fully funded and able to finish the race.
If you would like to donate, please visit the ‘Support Me!’ link to the left of this blog.
Thank you!
