“0 Days till the World Race”. Is it really here? I am feeling a little under and overwhelmed at the same time. Part of me doesn’t recognize that this is actually happening. There have been months of anticipation; so many hours of preparation, some of which have been handled quite efficiently and others which have caused unimaginable headaches & stress; the fundraising, the shopping trips, the long talks I’ve had with family and friends to explain what it is that I am doing-or at least the small understanding I have of it. All of these things have left me feeling a little at a loss for words as I sit in the car driving to our launch location in Atlanta.
Having done all of these preparations and now finally being able to stop and just be “ready”, I find myself realizing that the principle chunk of preparing was not done by me in all those months of buying gear, getting vaccines, writing support letters, or organizing paperwork and documents. It has been God doing the preparing in me. After all, my gear could get lost by the airports, I may avoid Malaria and Japanese Encephalitis only to catch Dengue Fever, and my credit cards and passport could all get stolen. I have little to no control over these things. So did all of that preparation really make me ready for what is to come in these 11 months?
I think a different kind of preparation was going on that I never even added to my dozens of to-do lists. The Lord has been making ready my heart and my spirit by revealing certain scriptures to me, surrounding me with a support system, opening doors of opportunity, and changing my attitudes and my perspectives. He has been preparing the people we are going to serve. When we arrive, God may have already done a good work in them to prepare those people to have soft hearts ready to hear and believe the words of God through us. These are the types of preparations that will be the most important over the next 11 months. These are the preparations that will bear fruit on our journey and that will once again prove that God is the only provider I need.
