After violence and crisis events sprung up with increasing frequency in Egypt, the country was taken off our travel plans for safety reasons. However…
WE ARE GOING TO EGYPT!!!!
When I first signed up for the race in 2016, Egypt was one of the countries included on our route. I remember waking up last spring before going to church. I was going to speak in front of a church and ask for support. I woke up and started preparing for Sunday morning as usual. While eating breakfast I scrolled through the news on my phone. One article jumped out… Egypt just had a bombing that morning and many were injured and killed. My heart sank…
At church I shared briefly of my story before telling everyone of the journey ahead of me. As the congregation gave me their attention, Egypt came back to me.
My heart breaks not just for Egypt but for all the world. Throughout the world people endure suffering, pain, and evil. The reality is, this world is dark. The world is yet broken. We have a great hope in Christ, He has secured victory, the Kingdom is His. And yet, bombs, wars, strife, pain, hurt, all still run rampant through these lands.
The reality we live in…
We have a promise of a Kingdom that IS NOW and YET TO COME.
We live in the tension of a promise fulfilled and a world still broken.
I shared that day of the brokenness of Egypt telling the church that it is to these places that we travel and bring the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Hope of Christ this next year.
Then, after this crisis, Egypt was taken off our route. We would no longer be traveling to the land of the Pharaoh’s and Pyramids. The very place my heart broke for was no longer safe for us to travel to. Many of us on our squad have always had a heart for Egypt. It has been a desire to travel to Egypt from the very beginning. From day one we have been praying and expecting God to open a door. When everything was closed, and it looked as if darkness had shut the door on opportunity, when we reached our limit and couldn’t do anything more to go to this place, God showed up. He knew even before we left the path He had laid before us.
While in Cyprus, one of the teams met and made friends with some believers there. They put on a soccer club to help reach youth and share the Gospel and message of Jesus with the youth and the local’s who would come to play futbol. The group also had ministry connections in Egypt. From there, a proposal began to take shape to send a team to Egypt, just two months from when we planned to be there. Then, when the team traveled to Lebanon, they made even more contacts and met believers that plan on being IN EGYPT the same time that we planned to travel. God brought more and more people to us to provide contacts and hosts in Egypt. Now, with a green light from base-camp back at home, we have the opportunity to send a team to Egypt!
I’ll be honest. I don’t have a specific heart or call to Egypt. I never felt God pulling me in a specific direction. I am blessed to be on this team and I am thankful I get to go. I have a heart for people who are suffering and surrounded by darkness. I have a heart for wanting to bring joy, hope, and peace to areas that have none. Egypt is just one of those places. Those places are everywhere. Each new country we travel to needs this LOVE.
At the beginning of the year I was planning on journaling, being intentional with my race, and making goals and steps that I needed to take this year to reach my “there”. The first thing God told me this year was to throw my journal away. My planning journal that is…
He said “I get to set the plan this year, I determine your growth, where you go, and what you will do this year. Your job is to walk with me. Just follow me. Walk and talk with me every day. I will show you my faithfulness.”
Since then, my year has been filled with amazing surprises, spectacular new friends, challenges, hard experiences, learning to walk in character and integrity, freedom, wonderful new passions, depth, exploration, simplicity, learning how to love others fully where they are and for who they are, and sharing in wonderful fruit that could only be produced by the Holy Spirit at work in my life and the lives of those around me.
Egypt is just another day. It’s just another place.
But, I know with all of my heart that God has specific plans and purposes for the people we will meet there. He has given people on this squad a heart and faith to see this dream come true. Now, we head into a land that only God could take us, a place only He could get us to with the same hope that we have shared with others until now.
We need to raise $11,500 to send our team to Egypt. Will you pray and consider giving to make this happen. Egypt is an amazing chance to build soccer fields, work with schools, and partner with the local church to reach youth and locals alike with the Name of Jesus and partner in building His Kingdom in one of the darkest and hopeless places in the world. Will you help us bring Hope to these people?
Click HERE to donate
With Faith, Hope, and Love
Nathan
