The month of May brought me a new country, new adventures, new trials and a NEW TEAM!
Now I always knew new teams would happen at some point, but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my sisters of Jehovah’s Pride. We will always continue to grow our bond that started in Africa! For now it was time to grow to know and love my new team, Lost and Found.
I am now on a team of 6. Matt our encouraging team leader, Walter my bestie, Nat the comedian, Agnes from Holland, and Tori the Georgia Peach. We didn’t want to waste time, we wanted to jump into getting to know each other and serving together. We had our first travel day and after a pick-up truck ride, a train and a bus we ended up in Phuket. Phuket was more touristy than we anticipated and we found ourselves being distracted and serving the ways we knew, instead of together. We decided to spend the next few days at Koh Sok National Park. We thought in a more rural area we would be able to be more intentional with each other. We decided to spend the first day going on an 8 hour hike together, with our Mentor, Daniel.
I was so excited about this. Coming from flat ol’ Indiana I had no idea what I was getting myself in to. These trails were not carved out for us, they weren’t mainly flat, and NOTHING like good old Bluhm’s or Chellberg Farm back home. Now for those of you who know me well know that I have 2 left feet, I am not the most graceful. So I found myself struggling a lot. Thankfully among my new team I found some very encouraging and caring teammates. Walter kept an eye on me making sure I never fell over the edge of a cliff, and helped me down the steep slopes and showed me where to walk. Matt helped me through some intense rocks showing me where to step so my feet didn’t slide in between cracks. Normally I might be a little frightened of animals living in these cracks, but I was already so over this hike.. that had just started.. All three boys plus our adopted teammate William, were all so willing to take a break when I wanted to dramatically give up.
We found our way to the first resting area, a swimming hole.
When we got here we decided to continue on to see the highly spoken of Waterfall. Now at this point I WANTED to see this waterfall. I told myself the trail wasn’t that bad, let’s see this beautiful creation of God’s.
We started back to the trail, and as we kept going we encountered things like a tree blocking the path, that you could not go around because the path was on a slant, you had to climb over the tree. So naturally I started questioning if this was even a real trail. Again, Walter helped me over and then we came to a dirt wall…literally. I was informed we would be climbing up this. I laughed thinking it was a joke. It was in fact not a joke. we climbed up a 90 degree hill. Thankfully I still had my encouraging team to show me where exactly to place my feet and what to hold onto on the way up.
I made it up, thanks to my team, but at the top I wasn’t ready for a photo 🙂 just ready to get away from the edge.
Shortly after this we got separated from Tori, Daniel and Agnes. After all of this we HAD to continue on and see this waterfall. We hit a few dead ends, and then.. the leeches. In this National Park they have trail leeches. That climb up you while you walk the trail. As the others were burning some off of William for probably the twelfth time, I notice I had 3 on me. I freaked out when the wouldn’t come off. They burned them off of me and after a few more they didn’t bother me anymore. But by this point I felt like a hot mess. I had bloody shoes, my clothes were soaked with sweat, and the strap on my bag ripped. I was tired.
My brothers in Christ encouraged me through, and I was in prayer the whole trail. Praying to God thanking Him for these brothers, and also praying that He helps me make it to the end. (Dramatic I know)
So we keep going looking for this elusive trail that leads to the Waterfall. Matt decides to go ahead of us at a faster pace hoping to bring us back good news of a trail! Well when he came back, he had never found the trail either. We knew we had to go back the way we came, and be out of the park by 5. We decided to turn around and head back.
Back.. through the trees that are down and the 90 degree hill.. that we had to go DOWN this time. I was so focused on prayer at this point that I wasn’t as scared, and I was just ready to head back.
On the way back there was a down pour of rain. It was beautiful to see from the inside of the forest, but a little cold. However, this did not break anyone’s spirit. The cheerful and encouraging teammates of mine continued in the same manner. We eventually made our way back to hostel, ate and slept.
This was one of my favorite experiences for a few reasons. It was great getting to know my new teammates while doing something so challenging for me, and to this day they still encourage me to try things I find challenging, and to do it with the same cheerful attitude. I also like to reflect on this experience as a time when I turned to the LORD for strength, and He provided, and went even further with these encouragers He placed me with.
The biggest lesson I learned was to focus on the NOW. God has been trying to teach me to do this since January. However, I would still find myself day dreaming about future countries we’ll visit, and how excited I will be to be home for Thanksgiving. Then I realize I am not fully enjoying the NOW and giving my all to our tasks at hand. Whenever I was on the trail and I’d look ahead and see a hill I would get discouraged, but when I kept my eyes on where I was at I didn’t even notice the hills. The tiredness and discouragement was all just perspective of looking ahead instead of focusing on the NOW.
I’ve decided to finally completely enjoy my race, and let go of anything that is not in the NOW. I will be intentional, and present for everything. At points when I start to day dream, I just remind myself of the lesson God taught me that day on the trail.
UPDATE:
I did not meet the financial deadline of being fully funded. However AIM gave me grace, and I can continue to fund raise. I am only $2,369 away from being fully funded, so I ask that you join me in the adventure by continuing to cover me in prayer, and am also asking for donations. Thank you for the continued support <3
