Hey everyone! This month here in Laos has been pretty interesting. Its been a month of being reminded of what it looks like to trust in Him and a month of getting Life breathed back into me.
Due to a lack of contacts, we were only able to send three teams here to Laos while the others went to Cambodia. I had the opportunity to partner up with an all girls team working at a school in the capital where we did a lot of manual labor.
In the beginning of the month we got to dig fifteen 4ft deep 4ft wide holes for columns for an extension to one of their buildings. This was probably the hardest I’ve worked the entire Race. We had to break through a thick layer of concrete for like 4 of the holes. But the most difficult thing was that the ground was full of, well, everything. The area we were staying at had been flooded many years ago, and after the flood people would just bury the old wreckage and then build on top of it. So we dug up brick walls, toilets, tarps, forks and knives, and all sorts of other things. And once we were near 4 ft, the hole would fill up with a bunch of groundwater.
It kind of felt like I was at work again; we would work from 8:30 am to 4 pm. It was a long and arduous process, and I didn’t get to help finish.
About halfway through the month we had a team leader here in Laos choose to go home for personal reasons. Since the team was leaderless–and since there was only one other guy by himself on the team–I got to jump on a 10 hour bus ride to head up north to Luang Prabang where they were currently doing unsung heroes (a thing where the team doesn’t have a contact, but instead researches new contacts for AIM to partner with).
While in Luang Prabang we went and stayed in a village and just lived there for a couple of days. We attempted to fish–our guide took Brad and I, next to naked, out into a pond to try and throw a net, only the Laos man caught anything–we “helped” make a bamboo basket, we ate their delicious food, hung out with kids, and walked to another village an hour away to see what other village life was like.
This month was challenging and yet really good in a few ways. Being with an all girls team was challenging not because of the girls, but rather because of the absence of another WR guy. There was a time when I was really struggling because I just wanted to talk to another guy, but couldn’t. But when I told the team that I was having a hard time not being able to talk about some stuff due to there not being another guy, they totally understood and prayed over me. Even though I didn’t share anything specific with them, I felt very loved and encouraged after that!
Another thing that was challenging this month, was truly trusting Him with what my life will look like after the Race. Since we are nearing month 8, it can be easy to slip into day dreaming of what comes next. I would often pray, “hey, help me to trust in You with all of these thoughts in my head. Amen.” And then my brain would go crazy and start thinking, “ok, so how am I going to make xyz happen after the Race, should I move back to Fort Collins, is any of this even remotely realistic?”
One night when I was doing this, a thought hit me. It was something like Him saying: “Listen, you pray for wisdom and trust all of the time, but when you intentionally toil over these things in your mind that you can’t control yet–or ever–it doesn’t work; you demonstrate trust in Me when you choose not to intentionally think about these things. By doing this you release control to Me–that is trust.”
Thank you for your continued prayers. There are a lot of challenging things that I run into with being on this trip, but there isn’t anywhere else that I would rather be than on the Race right now. Please pray for tenacity, perseverance, and that I would continue to be invested here. Looking forward to seeing Colorado people in just over 4 months!
