I’m finally attempting this blog thing. Sorry it has taken me so long to write my first post, I hope and pray to get better at this as time goes on. I want to keep all my supporters up to date with what God is doing in and through me during this crazy adventure He has called me to.
What to say? What to say…? I am honestly already at a loss for words so bare with me if this is super choppy.
As most of you know we had our training camp last week. Although camp was only a week long, it honestly seemed like a month. So much happened during that week! Physically preparing, such as setting up and tearing down camp every day, waking up before sunrise to get in some exercise, being put through scenarios each night that we may encounter while on the field; such as “the airlines losing our luggage” “having a layover and sleeping in the cold/loud airport” and even getting to have a campout off campus but needing to build a shelter for all 55 of us using tarps and rope. Needless to say it was a very tiring week. However, the preparation spiritually and mentally was even greater. The knowledge we had poured into us everyday during sessions and the worship we experienced every night turned my life around.
Prior to camp The World Race was just a trip I had been planning for quite sometime and I knew I needed to be ready for goodbyes and gear on my back by January. The Race was something I felt a calling to ever since my return from Africa at the end of 2012, but it only seemed like a dream or something I could talk about maybe doing in the future. After applying and being accepted in May it became something in my plans but still had to see how it played out, considering the money needed for it. I sent out support letters and started working as many hours I could get at Cinzettis (the restaurant I’m a waitress at). I slowly became a robot and was just focusing each day to make the money required for The World Race to become reality. My excitement for the race started to fade and I could only think of life after the race when I didn’t have to be in saving mode anymore.
I am happy and so thankful to say that God totally REVIVED me at camp!
With the community God thew me into and the multiple encounters and conversations I had with the Lord, He quickly defeated every lie satan had been feeding me. God assured me over and over that I was right where He wants and needs me to be. Most importantly He reminded me that sending me on The World Race was HIS idea not mine, so I need to quit worrying and trying to make it possible financially, on my own! He already provided the people to make it possible for my first deadline! Why would He quit there? He wants me to put my complete trust in Him providing the way to get me on the field to do His work, and that it’s something I should be excited for! Not feel like I’m carrying a burden of having to get all the money for it. But to feel HONORED and again EXCITED, because guys, THE LORD CHOSE me! How humbling is that?? The Lord CHOSE all of us to do work in His kingdom! I can’t explain how thankful and humbled I am that He is sending me around the world so that He can do His work through me but also USE the people on my squad and around the world to do His work IN me!
Every second of life can be a ministry, I don’t have to go around the world to teach or learn about the Kingdom of God. This is Lord’s plan for me, this season of my life, to go on The World Race! In that, the Lord taught me that every aspect of the Race is ministry as well. In fundraising, it sets up a perfect opportunity to tell others how God is working in my life and it gives them an opportunity to be apart of it. Just like in 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul is talking about every part of the body of Christ being equally important, I see that in this trip God has for me. To make this ministry He has created through AIM possible, we need the staff, the coaches, mobilizers, leaders, the ones to go, and the ones to fund all this work! Without every person that gives their time and effort and using the gifts God blessed them with, none of this is possible. In my blogging and posting pictures, there is ministry to people here at home. By telling God’s story for me it may inspire and help show who God is and call Christ out in those who haven’t found Him. I want to want to share ALL God is doing so that my supporters truly feel like apart of it all! Like I said before, without their obedience it wouldn’t be possible for me to go.
Anyway, those are just a few things of what God really started teaching me at camp. Now, you’re probably wondering why this blog is titled A Goat in a Marshmallow.
Well… it was a picture the Lord gave me one afternoon at camp. I saw a goat in a marshmallow and then it moved on to the goats body being stretched into a set of stairs and eye glasses slowly being put on the goats face. Weird right!? I really wasn’t sure what it meant or if it was even from the Lord. I went ahead and drew it in my notebook so that I wouldn’t forget and in hope that the meaning would be revealed to me. Sure enough it was! As I was sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting to board the plane back to Denver I started praying that God help me recap what just happened in the week. I opened my notebook and in front of me was the picture of my goat in a marshmallow.
SIDENOTE: Not only has God surprised me by calling me to The World Race, but in that he has called me to a place of leadership. In the process of finding teams within my sQuad, God called me to lead one of the teams. I was asked to take this position on the thursday at training camp by the mentors of my squad. With assurance through prayer that this is how God wants to use me and teach me in this season, I humbly accepted the position. (More detail and cool background story possible to come)
Back to the picture, so right when I opened my notebook to that page of the weird and poorly drawn picture. God told me that it was not a goat, but a sheep. I am that sheep. In the first drawing I am in a marshmallow because I’m stuck and unable to function properly, I have put myself in sticky situations and all in all not where I’m supposed to be. This was me before training camp!
The next picture, with the stairs and such. Was God telling me that I will be stretched! But I will be right where He wants me, just as any set of stairs is obviously placed for a purpose! It gets the user where they need to be. I will be stretched in multiple ways on the race, but specifically in the leadership role He has called me in. That I will be serving my team in ways that a stair case might serve a pedestrian. It carries the weight of the ones on it and helps them in direction (logistically I will need to get modes of transportation for my team) That my team and I will have hard days and easy days (climbing stairs and going down stairs) but that we will always be striving to be where God needs us to be. The eyeglasses were lenses of Christ! The only way to do this position properly is totally blinding myself and putting on the eyes of CHRIST! That I must be in full reliance on Him to lead us where we need to go and to be the servant to my team that He is calling me to be. Through this act I will be able to see more clearly not only in this season of leadership, not only in this season on the race, but also by practicing this in such demanding times on the field I will fully adapt to relying on those “eye glasses” in every day life! Every morning when I wake up, just like any person that wears glasses; first thing, I will put on my pair of glasses. Without them I am unable to function and see what God wants me to see, therefore I get lost and life becomes blurry. I slowly become the Goat in a Marshmallow again.
In this season my eyes will slowly adjust and I will never want to go a day without my special pair of glasses! I believe the Lord is wanting me to learn to completely rely on Him in everything. I know I am going to learn so much more than just that even. I am SO excited but also nervous as to what challenges the Lord has for me to get where He wants me to be.
Thanks again to all my supporters, family, friends, my sQuad, and bold|2831| for being such a big part in this chapter of my life!
