11 months after starting this Race, I'm finally approaching the finish line. It has been a whirlwind. Truly, I've been blown away. God has done more than I ever could've imagined in and through me along the way. So as I give everything I've got left (not much) approaching the end, I'm reflecting on what has happened this year.
Bulgaria: We had the best contact here, right from the get-go. I never thought that I could feel so much like part of a family after just a few weeks. Together with Pastor Yavor and his church, we visited and encouraged believers, we brought joy to orphans, and we delivered powerful messages to gypsy churches. This is where God showed me that my fear of public speaking is no match for the Holy Spirit. We learned that Bulgarians throw the best parties, where I was able to introduce my team and the church to the dance moves for my favorite kids' song "Jesus, You're My Best Friend"
Romania: We learned the power of prayer…and patience. We visited gypsy communities and loved on some kiddos, as well as pass out flyers to church and initiate Gospel-centered convos with random people on the street. But most of our time was spent prayer walking throughout the city. Pastor Zsomboar has been in the beginning stages of church planting for several years, but he persists in this lost city, confident of God's calling for him. He's an inspiring man. Our team had a lot of fun bonding opportunities with game nights, a murder mystery party, and a dinner when the men surprised us and completely spoiled the women for the evening.
India: This month was probably my favorite ministry: working with the children's homes at ICM. For the first 2 weeks my team sanded and painted a whole 2 story children's home/church, inside and out. Frank and Kelly even painted an incredible Lion King mural in the boys' bedroom. We ended our time there with a Lion King movie night with the boys. The last two weeks we traveled to the other children's homes to host our "On Fire For God" VBS. The grand finale was a big VBS day with all 100 kids from the children's homes we visited. One thing that broke my heart was that the children we met didn't know how to hug–they liked physical affection, they just didn't understand the concept. On that last day, one boy kept coming up to me demanding "hug, hug!" then he'd squirm and squeal as I gave him a big squeeze before he started asking again.
Nepal: My hardest month on the Race. God taught me so much about His faithfulness. My team got in a bad bus accident, but praise God for demonstrating His faithfulness in this –the worst injuries in our group just needed a few stitches. Our main ministry was teaching computer classes to pastors to help them advance their ministries. It was sweet to hear their stories in the process. These men truly love the Lord and have endured much persecution. We made a good friend, Pramila, who had a sick sister. We cried with Pramila in the hospital on our last day in Nepal as her sister was dying. Even though it was so heartbreaking, I'm grateful that God allowed us to be there for Pramila during that time. Why God chose not to heal her sister is still the biggest question I have coming out of this Race. My team also had a 9hr/day 4day hiking excursion in the mountains. We just had to laugh at how ridiculous it was.
Kenya: Wowzas, God did awesome things in Kenya. FREEDOM!!! My teammates and I stepped up in bold and crazy ways as we spoke and sang out messages God laid on our hearts at daily revivals, crusades, church services, and prayer meetings. We also did door-to-door evangelism almost every day and saw so many lives transformed. My sweetest testimony from this month was seeing our contact get up in front of everyone in church and confess she's just been going through the motions for the past couple years, but seeing God in our team, she re-dedicated her life to the Lord. My team got to go on a safari to see the beautiful creatures God has created and we even got to see the world's 2nd largest crater.
Rwanda: This was the time of the Exodus. We lost a lot of our squadmates during this time for various reasons, which was hard for everyone on our squad. My team spent our time in a small village outside of Kigali working with a church to teach English. It was really fun to be able to teach at so many different levels –adorable little tinies all the way up through people our age who knew English pretty well, but wanted to dig in a little deeper. We lived with the sweetest family. Mama Silvy is the most incredible woman I've met in my life. She inspires me. Her children became like brothers and sisters to us. They took us to visit the genocide memorial, which was a powerful way to learn more about the genocide that touched the lives of everyone in the village we lived in. They also took us for motorcyle lessons. It's harder than it looks folks.
Uganda: We started out the month by rafting down the Nile as a squad. It was a wild and exhilirating experience. I'm proud to say that I was the only person to not get sucked into the rapids. Everyone else had a near-death experience. This was the longest time we've spent at a contact and we definitely grew more attached to this church and community. We got to minister at a couple schools run by our pastor. It was fun to play teacher and love on the kids during recess. We did some door-to-door evangelism as well, which was fruitful. There was one day I spoke at a highschool and had the students get up on their chairs shouting Philippians 4:13. That was a pretty sweet moment for me. We also learned so much about hospitality from our friends here who show it so well. One family took us for a memorable day of fun, then brought us back to the largest feast we've ever seen. We barely made a dent in the food. It was incredible to see people give literally all that they had.
Thailand: We scrubbed off that red African dirt and were welcomed into the land of malls and mirrors. We were able to enjoy some comforts of home here that we hadn't seen for the previous 7 months like airconditioning and Dairy Queen. My team worked with a great ministry called Step Ahead, which ministers to the poor in 3 different communities. They have an awesome program called Keeping Families Together, which works to keep kids in their homes instead of being put into orphanages because the family can't afford to take care of them. We lived in the largest slums of Bangkok. We taught English to the staff members of Step Ahead, who became dear friends to us, and to the children living in that community. Our eyes were opened as we prayer-walked in the red-light district of Pattaya. We had a few kids' programs and Erin even got to head up a basketball camp. Contrasting all the Western food we treated ourselves to, we also ate bugs.
Malaysia: We spent a lot of this month fellowshipping with church members over long, delicious meals. We celebrated Easter here. We helped decorate the church and we even prepared a song to sing with the band in Malay. We practiced it by singing it out walking down the street with the church youth, but on stage we suddenly forgot the words…and the tune, so it didn't go quite as planned. We also had some sweet evangelism opportunities, delivering flowers to people in the hospital and sharing the Gospel with college students. At God's prompting, I gave one girl my Bible so she could explore Christianity more deeply. Each time we did outreach, we got in trouble with the police. It is illegal to share the Gospel with Muslims here. We heard incredible stories of people giving up everything for their faith in Jesus.
Cambodia: This was another favorite place of mine. I've fallen in love with the Cambodian people. We spent the month living at Teen Challenge Women's Home, where we built relationships with the women there. These women have incredible testimonies. They have experienced harder things in life than I have ever heard of before. Yet they had so much joy! We danced with them in our free time. We had daily devotions, prayer, and worship with them, during which we were able to share a message that God had laid on our hearts. We also got to serve these women by "cutting the grass" and doing other yard work for them. In return, they blessed us with lots and lots of freshly picked mangos. We spread the word about the pre-school and Sunday afternoon children's program, during which Bible stories and lessons are shared with the kids. We got a HUGE response. It was so cool to see how many families in this community are being touched by this ministry. We had a little weekend getaway to visit Angkor Wat and my dream of riding an elephant (my one bucket list item for the Race) finally came true!!!
The Philippines: K.I.M is such an impressive ministry. During our first few days resting in Manila, we got to learn about all the different ministries they've started up. It was truly inspiring how one family followed God's prompting and God was so faithful in seeing them through it. My team flew to another island to serve at a children's home in the middle of the gorgeous mountains. Here, God gave me big dreams of starting up my own ministry. We spent our time here loving on the children. One girl became like my little sister. One of the most rewarding experiences on the Race has been helping one 3yr old boy with CP to feel like a normal kid. On Saturdays, we traveled to an abandoned church to lead a VBS program. We served the children's home with painting projects and we brought lots of joy to the kids with a dance party and wacky olympics. The children's home is on the property of a camp, where we were able to volunteer our time helping out with a sports camp the first week. Erin was in her element coaching basketball and even giving private lessons to a college basketball player. Our team bonding day was a crazy adventure of ziplining on Asia's longest dual zipline, zorbing (giant hamster ball rolling down a hill), and trekking through the jungle in the rain to see some breathtaking waterfalls.
That's just a very brief summary of the Race. If you haven't been keeping up, I encourage you to take a look back at my previous blogs or schedule a coffee date with me to hear more stories. My squad will be saying our goodbyes on the beach next week and I hop on a plane back to America next Sat, June 9th. Thank you to all who have supported me with prayers, finances, and encouragement. I couldn't have done this year without you and I'm so grateful to you because this has been a life-changing year. Stay tuned to find out what's next in the exciting life of Sarah Ruplinger.
