I am Fully Funded!
Praise God! Thank you to everyone, around the world who helped to make this race possible. I have seen and done so much, and to think, a year ago, the idea of raising $16,255 seemed completely ridiculous and definitely impossible. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We were in a closed country this past month, so I won’t talk much about what we did, or where, exactly, we were. It was a good, restful, growing time, and now we’re in the sweltering Cambodia for the month of April (month 8 of the world race!!!), and here we’re partnering with a group called Shalom Mission. We’re teaching English, working with children, and, as always on the race, doing plenty of things we never expected to do.
Because this is month 8 we’re heading into, and because I’m fully funded, I thought I’d give everybody 8 things that, by donating money to this journey, you have helped fund. 8 moments that would have never existed had you not pledged to support—so thank you again!
Month 1: Panama City, Panama
Imagine this. It’s your first month on this journey they call The World Race, and your crammed in a van about ready to head to an all male prison in the Panamanian jungle with a Pastor whose been going there for over 30 years. And you’re going to share a bit of your story. We walked into the prison that looked more like a run-down school, and we walked through “security” and into the prison’s church room—white walls, plastic chairs, Spanish verses all over the walls. About 6 or 7 guys show up in all, and you start to worship and pray (we had an amazing translator who made it all possible), and the sounds of our songs lifted out of the church and into the entire prison. I don’t even remember what I talked about that day, but staring at those men and hearing about how Jesus had radically transformed their lives had me in tears. It was one of those moments you just know you need to hold onto—to try not to lose any of the details. One man said, “I’ve only known Jesus these 6 months on prison, but they’ve been the best 6 months of my life.” They seemed so encouraged to see us there, and they’re people I still pray for today. Maybe now, you can too.
Month 2: San Jose, Costa Rica
Our team this month was only a team of 5, so obviously when you’re booking bus trips, that leaves someone having to sit by themselves (since buses sit two by two). I volunteered to be the lone woman out on our overnight bus from Panama City into Costa Rica (so I’m counting this one under Month 2 in Costa Rica), and I ended up sitting next to a man originally from South America. Anyway, he’d seen us praying in the bus station (his friend had thought we were nuns), and he asked what we were doing here in Panama. I told him that we were just praying for our journey. etc, and he told me it was the strangest thing, because he hadn’t prayed in like 10 years, and that morning he’d just woken up and felt like he should pray.
Then, on the way to the bus station he saw a guy in the middle of the city sitting on a balcony praying with his bible open on his lap. Then, he came to wait for the bus and saw us sitting in a circle praying before we got on. I got to talk to him for a few hours and share some more of the gospel with him and just encourage him (his English was really good), and I just remember thinking, ‘this is what it’s all about. This is the good news. This is what we were created to do.’ I don’t know what happened to that man, but I know that God was after his heart, and I’m hoping He won it.
Month 3: Nandasmo, Nicaragua
In Nicaragua, we got to teach at a small school for the entire month. The kids were lovely, even if they were also crazy, and Heather and I got to teach a few of the classes the Father Abraham song. We were singing and dancing and laughing and the kids would sing the songs at us when we saw them walking around the town. It was just a small thing, just a song, but hopefully it’s a little piece of Jesus they’ll have long after we’re gone and they’ve forgotten about us.
I also got to give an entire sermon in Spanish! My Spanish isn’t perfect, but God got me through it, and I felt like it was a message that God really wanted me to share, so I hope people understood it!
Month 4: Valle de Angeles, Honduras
In Honduras, we did a lot of different things for ministry—one of them being going door-to-door in the villages around La Villa de San Francisco and knocking on doors, guitar in hand, ready to pray. We’d been to a few houses, been invited in, sang some songs, chatted with the people in the houses (who seemed very, very surprised to see 5 white ladies and one Honduran they’d never seen before show up to their door). But there was one house, and one man, that were a bit different than the rest. Central American, in general, is a very religious place. Jesus stickers and slogans everywhere—but whether those slogans reach the heart is another question entirely. Most of the houses we’d been too had heard, in some way or another, of Jesus, and some even went to church.
But that man, in that simple, small house, on that day, greeted us with a mostly-toothless smile. Our Honduran, Raul, started talking to the man about Jesus, and the man had never heard the name before. And then we got to talk to him about this new person, this Jesus, and we got to pray over him and his family. It turns out he couldn’t read, but he lived with another man, a grandson I think, and so we left a Spanish bible with the man and prayed that the grandson in the house would read to him.
His face lit up as we prayed, and that, my friends, is what it looks like when a man encounters Love for the first time.
Month 5: Gua Musang, Malaysia
There was a ton of flooding in Malaysia right before we got there, and so we actually got to help with the flood clean-up for a few days. We got to help one family clean up their restaurant—and it was in baddddd shape. Mud caked 6 inches deep on everything, a ton of things destroyed from the water damage. We didn’t get to stay with her many days, but it was great getting to know her and, by the end, I felt like we really did help clean up the restaurant, which definitely meant a lot to them. The mother’s name I don’t remember, but the daughter was about our age and her name was Boanna, and we always referred to her younger brother as Ronaldo, because he was always wearing his Cristiano Ronaldo jersey. I could see hope return to the mother’s eyes as we cleaned, and that was a special thing to be a part of.
Month 6: Chiang Mai, Thailand
On Valentines Day, Teammate Trish had the idea to go around downtown and pass out notes and cookies to people at the bars/girls working at the bars. We wrote little notes that said, “You are so loved,” in Thai (thank you, google translate), and some of them also had bible verses on them.
We’d been walking around all night, and we’d gotten to pray for some people and have some good conversations with some of the girls working (and also with the men at the bars), but one encounter was pretty next level.
We were walking by a river (looking for Mexican food, of course), and we saw this man. He was sitting by himself, holding some kind of stick, feet dangling into the river below. He looked dirty and poorly dressed, and we assumed he was homeless. We’d been going for a few hours at this point, so someone dug up a cookie, and someone else pulled out a note and we handed it to the man, expecting to smile at him, say a few words, and be on our way.
He smiled at us when he saw the cookie, thanked us in his broken English, showed us a tattoo on his back that read, “I love you,” and then, he read the note. You are so loved. He just stared at it. And then, he started to weep. He threw the stick he’d been holding into the river, and just brought his hands to his face. We silently sat next to him, not knowing what to say, not knowing the language even if we did, but just sitting and praying the words would sink in to his heart.
We invited him to eat dinner with us, but he declined, and when we walked back afterwards, he was gone. I don’t know what became of him, like with all the characters in these stories, but God does, and I’m trusting in that.
Month 7: Laos
In Laos, it was hot, dirty, and the days were long. But there was also a big Buddha statue that was painted gold and overlooked the entire city. To get up to it, you had to really want to, because there were over 500 of the steepest stairs I’d ever seen, and that was just on the way up. Anyway, my teammate Nicole and I decided to hike up, and we decided to take prayer breaks every few steps—to pray for the people earning ‘points’ with Buddha by making the hike up, and also just to rest. And then…I prayed that God would burn it down. I prayed that Buddha would get struck by lightening. That the gods of that city would meet the God of heaven and earth, and that it would never be the same.
The next day, two of our squadmates made the hike up to see big Buddha, and, wouldn’t you know, it was a pretty hard hike because a bunch of the wooden stairs had burned down, and they were still smoking. Still. Smoking. White and black ash everywhere. They’d caught on fire.
That’s my God, ya’ll.
Month 8: Siem Reap, Cambodia
Obviously we’re nowhere near done in Cambodia, but this is something super cool that’s already happened, so I decided to list that (for now J)
So this is a longer story, but during the first worship session we had at debrief, I felt like my squadmate Melody and I needed to go and make a ‘free prayer’ sign and just go out into Siem Reap with her guitar and just worship and invite people in if they needed prayer. I told her about it, and she was like yeah, let’s do it! But by the last night of debrief and I’d kind of forgot about it and I assumed she’d be too tired or something, but she came up to me after that final session and asked me where we were going to do our prayer, so I was psyched.
We didn’t have any cardboard or makers to make a sign, but I just a feeling we’d find some along the way. And sure enough, walking into the city we found the perfect sized cardboard. Then, we decided to get ice cream before we headed out, and sure enough we see Andrea there, and she has a giant black sharpie. Now we can make our sign and head out into the streets. We walked over by the river, and I was thinking we would sit on a bench or something like that, but Melody said that she thought we should sit on the ground (like actual beggars would), and so we kept walking and found a place right by the river. She whipped out her guitar and we just started to play and sing. We had a few people kind of pause or watch us for a while, but never too long. UNTIL these three Cambodian guys around our age just stopped and asked us what we were doing (see, they originally thought our sign said ‘free beer’ and not free prayer. Lolz).
Anyway, we asked them if they wanted prayer, and they told us they were Christians too! They thought we were originally from YWAM, but they did know what the world race was, and they asked if they could pray over us, and they did and then we prayed over them. After we prayed over them, we kind of thought they’d go on there way, but they said that they felt like they should stay with us and worship for a while. Two of them knew English (one had basically learned all his English in a month thanks to Holy Spirit), and they all knew how to play guitar, and so we all went to sit on this bridge that was all lit up and just take turns playing the guitar and singing songs in English and Khmer. It was amazing. There were a few street kids who just sat and watched us for a while, and then started dancing to our songs. Amazing to see Holy Spirit move through kids. The guys we met were really encouraged by what we were doing, just going out and offering free prayer, and it was encouraging to talk to them and hear them refer to us as, ‘family.’ With Jesus, we really do have the biggest and most welcoming extended family in the world.
Anyway, there was a guy sitting on that bridge with a backpack on that was just watching us sing, and so one of the Khmer guys went over to him and started talking to him as we kept worshipping. It turns out, the guy had missed his bus and just decided to sit on the bridge for a while. We got to talk to him a little about Jesus, and the Cambodian guys said that they would follow up with him.
So that’s that. We have 4 months left on the field: Cambodia (our last month in Asia), and then Swaziland, Botswana, and South Africa. Heading into Africa for the last three months of this trip is going to be crazy, but I couldn’t pick a better continent to end this journey on.
Just one more huge THANK YOU(!!!) to everybody who has donated, whether it was time or money or supplies or whatever else, I appreciate you all! I can’t wait to see what Cambodia has in store.
I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated 
Bree
