We may be far from home, but we have received SO MANY blessing from home. Here are a few of my favorites –
1. Financial Donations.
$17,017 is a LOT of money that each one of us have had to raise. Thankfully 6/7 of the women on Ahava Chara are FULLY FUNDED! But each time we got a donation we were full of gratitude, praise, and joy. It was a beautiful blessing of support and encouragement to receive donations of all numbers.
2. Monthly Dinners.
Jessica’s parents have blessed our team with a full dinner out on them. This has been a highlight each month, and it is a night of joy and celebration. A night that we can dress up, and go out into the city where we are and have a meal worth more than $2 – literally. We have a food budget of roughly $2 a meal this month (which is the biggest budget we have had ALL YEAR) and this monthly meal we
3. Beach Bungalow.
This month we were in Cambodia for the Khmer New Year. With the holiday, our host gave us 4 days off in a row so we went to the beach! We set a budget as a team, and we were able to find one that was at the high end of our budget. I was talking to my Mom about it, and she offered to give our team an Easter basket in the form of paying for the bungalow! This was a huge blessing for our team to be able to have a weekend to spend with just the 7 of us, and not have it press the limits of our wallets!
4. Care Package.
Another way that my Mom has blessed us is that she actually broke AIM’s rules (sorry guys!) She loves giving gifts, and care packages are always one of her favorites. She managed to find a way to send our team a care package that had things like sour patch kids which we haven’t really seen this year, cookies, and even a coloring book! While it may have broken some of AIM’s rules it really meant the world to me that she would put in so much work to send a package all the way to Vietnam for us!
5. Letters.
A lot of us had people from home give us letters to be read while on the race – I had people email mine so I didn’t have to carry the weight. But these letters are such a blessing to carry around. It’s so fun watching teammates sit down at the edge of the room (as close to ‘alone time’ as we can get) and have a smile spread across their faces as they read a note from home. It means the world to each of us to read of your love and support when we start missing home!
6. Coaches / Leadership
AIM has found some amazing leaders for us, that includes the alumni squad leaders that serve with us through Month 5, but there is something refreshing about the times that our amazing coaches and squad mentor come out to visit. They come out for debriefs, and we get to spend days hearing wisdom from some very wise individuals, we get a fresh set of eyes coming in on our trials and conflicts, and we get to be loved by somebody who lives in America. Debrief is coming up soon and we as a squad are SO EXCITED for these 3 amazing people to come out!
7. Prayers.
This is quite possibly the biggest blessing. We most of the time don’t even know the specific times that prayers are said for us, but we can feel them. We know that when a prayer request is sent out – via blogs, messages home, or other posts, we can feel a definite difference when the prayers are lifted up. We can pray for each other, but knowing that there is an army of prayer warriors back home praying is a real blessing!
There have been so many blessings this year already, but these 7 have been some of the most prominent. Thank you to everyone who has been apart of this for finding creative ways to show your love and support.
