Hi everyone! Sorry it has taken me so long to post again. I have spent the last two months struggling with what to write. I have several half written posts that ended up just not sounding right, or it just didn’t feel like the right time to share them. Looking back now I can say that this extended far past my writing. I have spent the last couple months in Malaysia and Thailand, and just recently arrived in Cambodia. It has been marked by a new atmosphere and new lessons from the Lord.
In March my team was blessed to have the opportunity to serve as a UH or Unsung Heroes team. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it means that we spent our month searching for people, churches, and organizations that might be interested in hosting a team in the future. This left us with quite a bit of latitude and freedom. We didn’t have anyone telling us how things were going to work. There was no one telling us when we needed to wake up to get to ministry. There was no one there to structure our days for us. God asked me to use that freedom to rest in Him. This quickly became much more of struggle than I had anticipated. Being in month 8 the most common question I asked myself and was asked by others was quickly becoming, “What are your plans for after the Race?” I was even more quickly consumed by the thoughts running through my mind of the possibilities and plans of what I could potentially do. This was the opposite direction from where God wanted me to go. He was telling me to step back and trust in Him and in my teammates. He was reminding me that I am not the one driving and that my place is not to be in driver’s seat. He was asking me to focus on where I was at. While it was difficult it was an important lesson for me to learn. It turned out to be a beautiful month and there were so many cool things that happened and I have so many stories that I look forward to sharing with everyone down the road.
The following month in Thailand ushered in so much more than I could have thought. I had a new team and a new ministry. We had Parent Vision Trip on the horizon, along with Holidays (Easter and Songkran aka. Thai New Year aka. gigantic country wide water fight!) and a lot of uncertainty as to exactly how most of it was going to work out. While I had a good month, I enjoyed our ministry and I love my new team, I struggled a lot spiritually. We had long days and spent much of our time feeling physically exhausted. There were many days where we would get back to where we were staying and didn’t do anything more than order some food and then go to bed. I began to let my mind and my thoughts wander. I felt like I was stuck in this place where I was just waiting for something to happen. I began to question what I was doing. Was I missing something? Was this month just supposed to be a continuation of the lessons God had been teaching me in Malaysia? Looking back now I can see what I was supposed to learn, but in the moment. I felt so stagnant. I felt I was going nowhere. I felt like at times I was going through the motions. I thought I was putting in what I needed too to get by. I wasn’t aiming higher. I was confused and drained spiritually. I knew that something was off, but I didn’t know what.
Eventually our time in Thailand came to an end. Even though I was struggling, I still learned a lot about Thailand and got to spend time with some amazing people there. I got to spend about a week in Chiang Mai doing what we refer to as ATL or Ask the Lord ministry. The result was a new friendship, some very deep and special conversations with fellow squadmates, as well as getting the opportunity to meet some of my squadmates’ parents who came out for PVT. It was a blessing to have some time to think and reflect back on the past two months and to think more about where I felt stuck. Little did I know then that I wouldn’t have to wait too much longer to figure it out.
The beginning of our time in Cambodia was unique. Rather than going straight into our month 10 ministries our squad was blessed to be a part of an event called the Awakening. This was an opportunity where three squads got to come together for three days for worship, fellowship, ministry, and discipleship. We were joined by O squad who is going into month 8 and S squad who is headed into month 5. There were a series of messages given to us over several days by Gary Black (Leader of the G42 discipleship program), who had been with my squad for PVT though I only met him once since my parents weren’t in attendance. If you had told me just how impactful they would be even just a week earlier I probably would have thought it possible, but been rather skeptical. Within the first several hours of our being at the Awakening it was already shaping up to be so much more meaningful than I could have imagined. After a beautiful time of worship on a rooftop in Cambodia singing and praising the Lord as we watched the light fade from the sky, I knew that somehow I would come away different yet again. The puzzle pieces that I had been missing over the last couple months were waiting for me here. I just had to listen and to embrace it.
As I have come to learn experiences with the Holy Spirit come in steps. It is best to take them one at a time but sometimes you miss one take the next and later have to go back to see the one you skipped. Night one was the one that showed me what I’d missed. Sitting on that rooftop, on a spiritual high after worship, the message we received quickly brought me back down to reality. Gary started out his message by telling us that we only get out of Race what we put into it. We can’t expect God to do everything and that by not putting our full effort into it that we were allowing one of two things to stop us from fully experiencing what God had for us. The first was that you were letting your fears stand in your way and the second was we were letting ourselves get apathetic especially with being so much closer to the end of the Race. While I was walking back to our hostel at the end of the night with Justin (one of our alumni squad leaders), he asked me which one I thought described me. It took me aback for a second, but the next I knew the answer. It wasn’t fear. When I started the Race that would definitely have been true, but God had worked through so much of my fear over the course of our time in Europe and Africa. Now the second one; I couldn’t dismiss as easily. I don’t feel like I had gotten completely apathetic and certainly not in all areas, but spiritually I knew that I had been struggling. I was frustrated that I felt like nothing was happening when I felt that something should. I also wasn’t making any real effort to change that. I wrote it off as I was learning how to live life when I wasn’t experiencing life changing revelations on a constant basis. I felt very much convicted. Now I had a name for what I was experiencing in increasing amounts over the last month and a half. I had been slowly becoming more and more spiritually apathetic.
Over the next day I struggled to understand what I needed do to change. Later that evening, back on that same rooftop; I was struck again. Gary said that most of us are in a place of transition. It is like the Saturday before Easter. It’s the waiting period after Jesus passed away and before He arose on the third day. He said that it is that space where you are stuck. You can’t go back, but you don’t know what is next or when it will be time to move forward. It is the place where God wants us to live most of our lives. He wants us to learn how to sit, listen and wait on the Lord and ask Him why we’re there. That is a hard statement. It is hard to really wrap my head around that idea. What does waiting accomplish? What good does it do for me to just sit still and wait? He answered this too, before I could really think about it. He referenced Psalm 27:14 which says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” He said that God is always aware of your prayers. Sitting in silence and waiting is the best way to wait on Him. He is not at our beck and call. He doesn’t fit into our plans and our time frames. His timing is perfect and is always right. He reiterated slow down and wait on the Lord. If you don’t wait you will mess up and have to do it all over again. The most important piece Gary said was that, “In the waiting you will get to know the Lord. You will hear Him when He says go left or go right. You will start to smell and look like Him.” So there was my answer. What good is waiting? Our time of waiting is the time we get to know the Lord so that when He does tell us what to do or show us where to go we are prepared and we know His voice. That waiting period will rarely be comfortable and there will be times when He tells us to go head on into a storm. Regardless of what He asks us to do or where He tells us to go He expects immediate obedience which we can only learn by learning first to wait on the Lord. This message was paired with a beautiful image. Towards the beginning of his message Gary asked us all to close our eyes and see ourselves placing everything that we knew and didn’t know at the foot of the cross. I generally have a difficult time picturing things like this. However, this night was different. It was so clear. I could see myself placing everything there at the base of a simple, but beautiful cross. I put down my fear, my expectations, my experiences, my past, my family, my knowledge, my future, my ambitions, everything both known and unknown at the base of the cross, at His feet. I heard Him clearly tell me to sit back and look up at the cross, at Him. He told me that what I needed to learn was how to sit on my knees at the foot of the cross, look up and keep my eyes on Him. I needed to learn how to keep my eyes on Him without getting distracted and looking back down at everything I have place at His feet.
I was so moved by this image. It was overwhelming, calming, and exciting all at the same time. It was one of those moments that leaves you with no question as to if something was different. I could feel the change within me physically. It was as if the piece that had been missing had just clicked into place. There was however one piece left, to seal this change that I felt. It came the next morning. As Gary was giving the morning announcements after another amazing worship session on the roof it was announced that they were going to be holding baptisms at the end of the night for anyone who wanted to begin a new chapter or seal a turning point in their lives, or start anew. Again something just clicked and it just seemed right. As we moved through the day I asked the Lord if this was really what I needed to do. I said that if I could write down the reason without hesitation that I would know. It took me less than five minutes to write this.
– “I am going to get baptized tonight. I not only feel like I have truly become a new person from who I was two years ago, but there is a piece that I feel even more convicted about. Last time when I was baptized I kept it to myself. It was important, but in many ways it was selfish and cautious. I was baptized in front of my church yet it was truly in front of mostly strangers. I didn’t have my family or friends there. I didn’t have anyone there who could hold me accountable for my decision. I had no one there to celebrate with me after. This time I will be surrounded by family, by people who will be there to celebrate and to keep me accountable to my promise. I’m not running any more. I’m not hiding behind change. I’m tearing down the walls I have placed around myself. I’m letting people in further than just in the door way. Last time was more for me, this time it is fully for Him. Last time marked a turning point in my life. This will mark the next.”
It has truly been a rollercoaster over the last almost 10 months. I have learned so much about Him and about how to live life for Him every day. I have been able to see radical changes in the way I see life and the way that I live each and every day for Him and Him alone. That night sealed a new chapter in my life. It was my promise to continue to live out my life the way that He has shown me over the last 10 months. I’m going to carry it all with me and go full force ahead with excitement and enthusiasm into the last 7ish weeks of my World Race. I’m going to carry it with me to America and into the rest of my life. To finish out I want to share with you what I wrote in my journal after having gotten baptized in front of my team and my squad. These are the people whom I have lived life with nearly 24/7 for the almost 10 months. We have been through ups and downs. There have been times where we were able to celebrate with each other and others where we cried with one another. There are few other people who know more about who I am than many of my friends that have been here with me. I wish I had been able to share this moment with my friends and family back home, but as I have learned, God expects immediate obedience and when He says now you jump in! While it is not in person I am so excited to share the video with all of you so that you can be a part of this journey with me. I was blessed to be baptized along with many of my squadmates and fellow Racers from O and S squads. I’m also going to link the video of the incredible worship session on the roof and in the middle of a rain storm that preceded our baptism. These two videos were filmed by one of the members of S squad. Thanks so much for posting them!
4/28/17
~ Abba, Father you have really spent this time during the Awakening to show me where I was at and what I was missing. You showed me that in this period of waiting and of confusion and wondering it was not me who was waiting, it was You. You were waiting for me to learn where I needed to be. You were waiting for me to learn how to sit at the foot of the cross and not look down at everything that I placed in at the base. You were waiting for me to listen and to hear You tell me to turn my eyes upwards to the cross and keep my eyes fixed on You. Abba, You have taught me so much over the last couple days that it has blown my mind. You have showed me that yes there will be many times in our lives where we are waiting on You, but the most important part is that we keep our focus on you. When we focus completely on You we will be ready to jump into action, we will be ready with immediate obedience to answer Your call. In our waiting we are constantly learning more and more about You. The time we spend waiting at the foot of the cross teaches us to hear Your voice when You tell us to go left or to go right. Abba it has been an overwhelming three days. You have radically changed my life for You. Abba You have taken what You started in my soul throughout the Race and rocketed it into an new place. Several months ago You reminded me of the image of farther up and farther in. Abba! That is where You took me today. You took me farther in and deeper still into a relationship with You!
