Oh, Sri Lanka. Where do I begin? We actually weren’t even originally supposed to come here. We found out in Madagascar that our visas in China got denied and some of the hosts in Mongolia had to drop out, which lead to the route change. Our leaders told us that each team had options, we could either go to Sri Lanka, or Indonesia for our Month 5 ministry, and that we would then do ministry in Thailand after. Who doesn’t like options right? So our team prayed about it, and the coolest part was that all of my team felt God calling us to Sri Lanka, so that made the decision process super smooth thankfully.
So fun fact the world race has never sent teams to Sri Lanka, so we get to be the “pioneers” of it. Gotta love good ole world race terms. Anyway, being the trusty “pioneers” meant that our ministry this month is to pray and see where the Lord leads us and then to try and see if we can find any ministries that would be interested in connecting with AIM so future racers could come here and serve.
After prayer and some google research, my team and I ended up in Mirissa, Sri Lanka. One of the best places to learn to surf out here. Ironic right, it’s not like my whole team wanted to learn to surf or anything. My team and I planned to stay in Mirissa for the first half of our time here and then we were going to make our way to Kandy after.
When we first got to Mirissa, none of us felt called to do anything, so we were basically just chillin for a couple of days. Naturally, we found the nearest grocery store since our favorite thing to do is snack. As we were checking out, we noticed a poster in the store with a cross on it. As we were leaving the store, we realized the name was Emmanual Food City. We were like woah they might just be Christians. The next day one of my teammates ended up back at the store, and she asked the owner if they were Christians, and he said “yes!”. On Saturday we went back to the store and asked the owner where he went to church, and how to get there.
Sunday we managed to make it to the church, and it was great. They were so welcoming and after the pastor sat down to meet us, and we told him all about the world race and how we would love to help out. Right then and there he had a list of things for us to help out with. The next few days we were involved in swim and surf ministry, home visits, manual labor work and so much more around the church.
It’s been so incredible to see how God worked this out all just because we wanted to surf and eat. I truly believe God uses our desires for his purpose and its stinkin cool. We decided that we should stay and continue to work with the church instead of going to Kandy and its been so great. These people are so on fire for the Lord and so loving. They’ve welcomed all of us and the world race with open arms.
