Three and a half months have passed since this adventure began. 104 days to be exact, if you’re counting. I often ask my teammates, “How has God been growing you lately?”, or “What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned on the Race so far?”.
*PHEW*… After struggling (with everything, if you need an explanation of ‘everything’, email me and we’ll chat) for the first two months, God delivered me to Europe month three and the realization sunk in that this is not forever. Also, that this life is not normal, and the days I walk this year, no matter how painful or glorious, are blessed days because very few people get to experience life like this.
Just sitting down to write this blog is helping my brain realize how precious the time is I still have left. The human part of me is saying, ‘Yep. And it’s a dang LOT of time…a whole season coming up in Africa (3 months), survive that…then four months throughout Asia.’ This is the human part of me that dreams of my family every night and still gets teary eyed when I envision the airport reunion coming in June next year. The spiritual part of me is starting to get emotionally antsy because I know my life will never be the same again, and my worst days on the Race may just be what I’ll be crying for a year from now.
Is this a predicament? Is this overactive thinking? Eh. no. It may be the type-A in me preparing…or the part me of that should probably stop trying to figure out, and just ‘be’ a little more.
In two weeks I will be in Africa for a season. The ‘Africa’ portion of our Race is scheduled smack in the middle, right around the time most of us should be getting smacked up the side the head with ‘what this is all about’. I can’t really expound here, it being pre-smacking season and all, but I can tell you several of us are anticipating Africa and some life. changing. Amen?
I can tell you I have learned more disappointing and courageous things about myself that may have taken many more years and ‘mistakes’ for me to learn. I have hurt and had a lot more bad days than is usual for me in a 4 month period. Yet I have seen God more clearly in more people, in more languages, through more miracles and answered prayers than I may have my whole life had I not been obedient to this call. And for now, this is what ‘it’ is about for me. And I want so much more of ‘it’.
Some examples of ‘it’.
Love in the slums of Guatchupita, Dominican Republic.
Play dates at the orphanage in Haiti.
Spreading God’s love in Dublin.
Family dinners.
Team Haven in Romania – Alexandra Reiner, Blake Rushing, Carrie Miranda, Sara Hansen, Krystel Kemper, Heidi Jahraus, William Diefenbach.
