I’m sitting in our apartment on our last day in Israel. Things are a bit frantic, running last minute errands, getting team food to carry with us for our bus ride, mailing packages home, stuffing my life in my pack once again. I’m sad to leave Israel, but excited for what lies ahead.
We received our ministry information and last night I was really upset about it. I came on this Race expecting to be living in my tent, not showering often, wearing the same clothes for days, and generally roughing it. However, the past 5 months God has offered me incredible amounts of grace. Now, it’s time to get real.
I leave at 5 p.m. tonight on an overnight bus to Cairo, Egypt. By the wonderful grace of God we happen to not have a flight until late tomorrow evening. As a squad we get to spend the day touring the pyramids and visiting the Cairo Museum. It makes me smile because Egypt is one of the biggest reasons I signed up for the Race (selfish confession). When we ended up in Hungary instead of Egypt in our third month, I oddly had peace about it and a vision of God laughing at me saying He had to get me on the Race somehow. He knew all along I was going to get to go, if only for one day. God gives the perfect gifts, and at the perfect time.
After a day in Egypt I’ll board a plane to Nairobi, Kenya. From there we’re hoping to pass our long lost friends, J Squad, who also launched in August with us. This is the first time the World Race had too many people launching at once so we were split into two squads and haven’t seen much of them since Romania. We’ll be in Nairobi for a few days camping until we can find the means to get us to Uganda.
From there, my team along with the girls team, Team Fresh will be heading to Bugiri, Uganda for our month of ministry. God is ready to stretch me beyond belief. I’m terrified but know incredible growth will come from it. I’ll be living in my tent, sans electricity, doing door-to-door ministry, prison and hospital ministry twice a week and various children’s ministries with a church there.
I’m excited about Uganda this month for another reason too. During middle school one of my best friends lived up the street from me and I practically lived at her house. Her older sister is now a missionary in Mbale, Uganda which isn’t too far from where I’ll be staying. She teaches English at an orphanage and we’re hoping to be able to meet up this month. It would be a wonderful taste of home and I would love for her to show me some of what she does.
So there it is folks! Please be in continued prayer for my team and growth for this month. I’m so blessed to be spending my first month of the new year in Africa and even more blessed as this is my second visit to Africa.
