Month 9 of our race we have had the incredible opportunity to participate in a program called unsung heroes. This is something that only a few teams get to do and something that I have wanted to do since heard about it when I was first applying for the race.
Let me preface this blog by telling any future/current racers that are reading it that every UH month is unique so if you get the opportunity to do UH your experience will look completely different from mine. However, I am confident that, like our month, yours will be characterized by answered prayers and unexpected surprises from our loving Father.
So what is Unsung Heroes –
When a team is assigned to UH, they are assigned to go into cities where AIM has little or no contacts and find new contacts for future racers.
I want to share with you about our month and some of the incredible stories we got to be a part of the Father writing.
Our team was assigned three cities to visit during out time in Peru. Arequipa, Puno, and Cuzco. After a couple days in Lima praying over what God wanted us to do and where to go we decided on Arequipa as our first stop.
Arequipa is a beautiful city. We went to the city with no leads on contacts and when we arrived we quickly got to work researching online what types of churches and organizations there were in the city. Our game plan consisted of splitting up and visiting a bunch of different churches on Sunday and seeing what came of that. So we did. And at the end of the day Sunday, we had meetings scheduled with 5 potential contacts. We had already met our goal for how many contacts we wanted to meet in that city. It was awesome to see how God blessed our time there so abundantly!
We got to schedule in time around meetings to do ministry together as a team. One day we went to the main plaza and a prayer walked around the plaza seven times (for those of you not familiar with the story of Jericho, that is how many times they walked around Jericho). We finished our ministry time playing worship in the park.
After our time in Arequipa we headed for Puno. We showed up in the city with no idea where we were going to stay. We had looked online for a hostel or a place to stay but everything was very expensive and out of our budget. So as we prayed about it, we decided that we were just going to go and see how God would provide for us, because He always provides. And sure enough, we got off the bus and a man came up to us and started trying to offer us tour packages and hotels, but we old him that we only had a certain amount for lodging. He told us that his brother had a hostel near by and called to see if there were any open rooms. He took us to see the hostel and as we walked out of the bus station, we noticed that he was wearing a blue baseball cap (God had told Mary on the bus to look for a man with a blue baseball cap… to read more about it, click here). We ended up having the entire top floor to ourselves with a terrace and a private bathroom, which is a rare find in hostels. And the hostel was one that I had looked at online and it was out of budget, but when they gave us the price, it was under budget.
It was on the terrace that we did our all night prayer vigil. Starting with an extended time up worship, we took shifts all night to pray for each other, our squad, Peru, the USA, your prayer requests, and the last few months of our race. We ended our prayer vigil by going to watch the sunrise over Lake Titicaca, and naturally by getting pancakes.
Our last stop was Cusco. We arrived in style with the free upgrades we got on our bus tickets. We had been praying all month for free lodging somewhere and finally saw God answer that prayer. A friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of Ashley’s knew some missionaries in Cusco and they were really kind and let us stay at the church for free. It was a huge blessing and kept us in budget.
All in all it was a great month. We prayed many bold and specific prayers and saw God answer them. Here are just some examples…
We prayed for an American missionary who needed refreshing – We met Laura in Arequipa, an American missionary who we quickly became friends with and who repeatedly mentioned how refreshing we were.
We prayed that a Family would invite us for dinner – The family who let us stay at the church in Cusco invited us to their house and cooked us a delicious spaghetti dinner.
We prayed for free housing – we got free housing in Cusco
We prayed to find a new church plant – one of the contacts I met with in Cusco was a brand new church plant, less than a month old.
one day we were walking around Arequipa and I told my teammates “I wish we could get up on top of one of the buildings, I bet the view is incredible – We stopped for lunch about 15 minutes later and the lady who owned the restaurant randomly invited us to her rooftop terrace to see the views.
we prayed for free water in Cusco (bottled water is very expensive) – There was a filter and water we could drink for free
We prayed that someone would randomly come up to us in a bus station and offer us housing – the man with the blue baseball cap came up to us in Puno and offered us housing.
These are just a few examples… there are many more. You can’t make this stuff up people! God is alive and moving, and if I learned nothing else this month, I learned that He loves to answer our prayers, especially when they are bold and specific, because then we can see his hand moving and see clearly when he provides. I hope this encourages you to pray some crazy prayers of your own. There is nothing too small to ask for. And the more specific the better. And if you don’t see him answer them right away, keep praying. I am still seeing some of the prayers I prayed in Peru being answered.
