Since my last post on my birthday, a lot of things have changed. I went to training camp, and it was amazing. It broke me down physically, mentally, and spiritually, and I walked away knowing more of who I was in God, and how much I felt called to share his Word not only on this Race, but also on a deeper level in my day-to-day life with those around me.
Although camp made the World Race feel a lot more real, one thing that popped up in my mind more than before was: I need to wait. I didn’t listen to this thought before, because with it came feelings of anxiety and frustration, and I thought that there was no way that leaving in August instead of January would be possible. As it turns out, God still doesn’t take my opinion into account. Thank goodness.
After camp, I started listening more to this idea of waiting, and I started looking up routes that were leaving in August, and there was one in particular that stood out to me. Route 2 will be going to India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Which means I’d still get to go to all of the countries in Asia that I feel called to, along with Africa, AND the best part was that I’d also be going to South America. Originally, South America wasn’t on my route, and I’d joke that I had spent 7 years learning a language that I wouldn’t be able to use in any of the countries that I’d be going to. Now, I can use all of that Spanish to spread God’s Word and truth to those countries! How cool is that?
Despite how called I felt for this trip, it took some time to be able to admit to myself that I needed to switch. It was so hard to leave my squad behind after surviving camp with them (haha…), and on top of that, some part of me had felt like I had failed. I’m not good at fundraising, but a lot of the fundraisers I had wanted to do were suddenly not going to be possible until after I graduated, which was after the deadline for $10,000. After I had come to that thought of failure, I started having more dreams about how terribly wrong fundraising could go, and even more dreams about not being able to do what others expected of me. After a lot of thought and prayer, I realized that those thoughts were not from God. The money didn’t come through because of me, it didn’t come through because He was wanting me to wait.
While I was driving home from Thanksgiving break, I prayed for answers and guidance. The next day, the Lord not only told me through a sermon that His will might not be what I thought it was, but He also showed me that He has people here that I need to reach out to first before I go anywhere. But that’s a story for another day. I am so grateful for the prayers and support I have been getting over these past few months, and I pray that those only continue to grow as I get ready to leave eight months from now.
