Its may 1st. Which means exactly two months until our feet will be on foreign soil! Chelsey and I have had so much fun (and even some stress) getting things lined up to leave on July 1st. I can honestly say that I did have my doubts about how all of the preparations would work out such as renting our house, telling our works, buying travel insurance, trying to pack for a year in one bag each, getting lots of shots, etc. The list goes on and on but I won’t bore you with all the details. 🙂 But I can tell you that up to this point, God is paving the way for this to happen. Plain and simple. Watching all these things unfold in front of us has been a great strengthening in my heart, to see that He really does want us on The World Race! And you might be thinking that it's because of our hard work and efforts that we are now nearly ready to leave, but I know that in reality it's in spite of our weaknesses. I have been reminded over and over that my plans and efforts WILL NOT be enough. I'm leaning on Jesus to lead and trying to follow. Really that’s all we can do. That's what we are called to do.
On the fundraising front, God is using others to bless us and we are getting closer to our final goal of $31,000. Right now because of so many generous people who God is using, we have $21,500 in our account!!! WOW! That’s over 2/3 of our total support we need to raise. So many of you have been so gracious and have been lead by God to give and we are humbled by it. In the last few weeks we held a fundraiser at Applebee’s and had a garage sale at Chelsey's parent’s house. They both went great! About 140 people showed up at Applebee’s to have breakfast with us and support the trip, while many more who were unable to attend still gave. Then others donated items of theirs to our garage sale. Between the two events we raised about $4200! Amazing right. I know that God is not done yet, but seeing how He is providing gives me hope that we will soon be fully supported!
So with only 3 weeks until we are at training camp and 2 months until we leave, I (Luke) thought it would be nice to get away on a kayaking trip with my best bud Matt. We have done long weekend trips together before and we both were very excited for this one. We chose a river that is full of rapids and excitement. The bad news is that we never made it to the rapids. I'll spare you all of the details, but we ended up dragging our kayaks across about 4-5 miles of swamp, weeds, mud, and then the thickest forest I have ever been in. I have never worked so hard in my life! And I mean it. For a little while I thought we might be eaten by a bear or just starve in the middle of an unknown forest.
The reason I’m bringing all of this up is because of some verses in the bible that have been my "life verses" for many years. Here they are…
Luke 9:23 and 24
Then Jesus said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it."
These verses have been very impactful for me for a long time. The idea that if I really want to "live" I need to give up the things I want and come follow Jesus. And the part that has stuck out to me lately is the taking up of a cross. In the last few weeks God has been opening my eyes to what that might look like. Why would someone pick up a cross? Well, why did Jesus pick up a cross? The only reason was to walk to His death! He didn’t carry it for fun or to get in a quick workout. He drug that beastly chunk of wood to a hill where He died for all of us.
Something that I experienced while dragging my kayak over large fallen trees and through thick brush was pain! Lots of pain! I hated it. But on the drive home from that weekend I began to think again about this cross that Jesus said we need to pick up and follow Him with. What is He asking of us. Well, probably some pain and discomfort. It's never been said that following Him will be painless. And ultimately I believe that we are dragging our massive chunk of wood to our own death! It's scary I know, but again, for what other reason would we carry such a thing?! There really isn't any. And I know am beginning to see that He calls us to follow in his foots steps. Am I willing to die for this thing called Christianity? Am I willing to trudge through the woods and swamps of this life with all of the pain it might bring? In the end am I truly willing to risk it all???
I’m letting the last part of these verses wash over me…“but whoever loses their life for me will save it." I want these 30, 40, 70, or 100 years I’m given to really mean something.I’m willing to lose what I might think of as life so that God can save it and use it to impact eternity. Join me!
Carrying a cross for Him,
Luke
