What to say? It’s been a long time since I’ve posted an update, and I’m sorry for the prolonged “silence”. The less I wrote, the more things started to pile up, which made blogging feel scattered and daunting. It’s a pretty poor excuse if it is an excuse at all for not blogging, but that is what happened. So I apologize for that.
With that being said, here are a couple paragraph stories from the past few months on the race to catch you up on some experiences and thoughts I’ve been having on this trip.
He Truly Cares
I was getting tired. While we were in Kazakhstan my team and I helped out at English clubs, played sports with the students, and hung out with them after classes. It was towards the end of our stay in one of the cities and we were hanging out in a park with some of the students. I was sitting by myself on a bench enjoying some time to just watch and not talk to anyone. (Sometimes consistently speaking through a language barrier is exhausting). Anyway, a young girl was sitting on the bench next to me by herself, and not talking to anyone either. I recognized her as one of the students I had spoken to before so I said hello.
Long story short this girl was one of the sweetest young women I have ever met. Over the course of our conversation she shared with me about her family, and about her dreams of becoming an actress one day, but she also shared about her feelings of loneliness, of self loathing, and frustration that she had masked for years. A teammate of mine joined us and we continued listening as the girl went on. She started to tear up, and it made me sad to see that loneliness had consumed this girl to the point that it had. She wanted to feel loved, and important, as all of us do. It was then my teammate and I shared about how the Lord has filled that lonely place in our lives and that there is a loving God who cares more for her than any person on this earth ever could and that she could talk to and share her hurts with him and that he would listen.
As the conversation went on, the girl started to smile. She liked the idea that the creator of the whole universe actually cared about her and what she was feeling (who wouldn’t?). Now no, she did not accept Christ at the end of that conversation, but I believe she left with a new hope and knowledge that she mattered, that she was created for a purpose, and that she was loved and a curiosity to find out more about this creator who took the time to give her life.
Horses and Hope
“Guide?” The young woman asked me. She was probably the only person that worked at the remote yurt camp who spoke any English at all. “No thank you” I replied with a smile. Not this time… I thought to myself. I then kicked the sides of the horse and we were off. In the U.S. if you go horseback riding it usually ends up being a scheduled trail ride down a well trod path with a 30 minute safety lesson prior complete with hairnet and helmet.
It’s a bit different at a yurt camp in Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgs are known for their nomadic living and love for horses, so when you go riding they put the saddle on and say “go ahead!”. This was my second day riding at the camp and it is safe to say it was one of my favorite experiences on the trip so far.
These horses are used to free running, and the plains of Kyrgyzstan looked endless as my horse picked up speed. I used to ride when I was younger but I had never gone faster than a trot and now my horse was galloping down the plain and obviously had intentions of picking up speed. It was one of those moments where you feel so happy that nothing else could have possibly made it any better. It was one of those moments where you picture God laughing with you as he watches from the skies. I stretched one hand up and looked up towards the sky and closed my eyes (probably not the safest… sorry mom… but the other hand was holding tight to the saddle). But if I ever felt the physical truth of what the Lord meant when he said “soar on wings like eagles” it was in that moment.
But the first part of that verse says “those who HOPE in the Lord will renew their strength”. The definition of Hope is “a feeling of expectation, and desire for a certain thing to happen.” Those who Hope in the Lord… those who expect and desire Him, will renew their strength. I started to ask myself what do I actually put my hope in? What are the things that TRULY matter? Do I put my hope in things of this earth? Probably… But what SHOULD I put my hope in? The answer is not complicated. It’s the Lord. That’s it. It’s that simple. What a lesson to learn on a horse in the middle of the plains of no where Kyrgyzstan.
So here’s my question for you. Where does your Hope lie?
I’ve officially been on a bus for 3 days…
It is a tradition for the WR Expedition squad to cross the Caspian Sea by freight boat. A large portion of what makes the Expedition squad different from other squads is that most of our travel happens on land. In fact, I traveled from India to Greece without stepping on a plane once… kinda crazy. But anyways, we were in the far eastern portion of Kazakhstan and had to get to the shore of the Caspian on the Western border. I’m not sure how much you know about Kazakhstan (and to be entirely honest I didn’t even know it was a country prior to this trip) but it is HUGE. And most of it is a desert.
We quickly found out that all the trains that went across the country were booked for about a month out and flying was not an option so my squad rented a sleeper bus. A sleeper bus does have beds, however it is still a bus and you are quite crammed in. And this bus ride was going to be 70 hours…. that’s right… 3 days on a bus.
I honestly could write an entire blog surrounding the 3 day bus ride, which was followed immediately by a 4 day freight boat trip across the Caspian, but for the sake of this story I will only mention one thing about the bus, and that is my hip. For about 4 years now my right hip likes to sometimes pop slightly out of place and usually I can just lay on a hard floor, do a v-sit, and feel it pop right back down. Well, laying down for 3 days on a soft surface first of all made me feel like I was a part of one of those astronaut experiments where they pay people to be confined to a bed for an extended amount of time, and secondly my hip decided to do its thing and slide slightly out of place. I started feeling it about 24 hours in and really felt it by the time we got off. However, no matter what I did it would not pop back, and decided it would eventually just fix itself. Fast forward to Turkey 2 weeks later I am walking up some stairs and feel a pretty bad jolt of pain in my hip. It felt like it was stuck in one place and didn’t have full range of motion. It was then that I realized my hip had never popped back like it usually did and it was starting to cause some serious pain. I tried everything. One of my teammates is an athletic trainer and she told me when she stretched it that she thought the hip had gotten “stuck” and the muscles around it were so tight because they wanted to protect it from getting any worse.
Long story short the hip got worse throughout the month, I would have trouble walking up hill, sleeping was difficult, and even sitting in the wrong way would cause some pain. Aside from being in pain though I started to get concerned for the Camino – the walking pilgrimage I am about to start in 2 days in Spain. How could I possibly do the Camino with a screwed up hip? I asked myself. I prayed quite a bit over those couple weeks and spoiler alert, the Lord answered my prayer.
Coming on this trip I had heard of healings taking place and actually hate to admit that I was skeptical to miraculous healing. I know that Jesus miraculously healed in the Bible and also used the disciples to heal as well, however seeing healings was not something I was accustomed to or to be honest, completely believed in.
But why not? The truth is the Lord of the universe can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and however he wants. How could I not believe that? So that’s what I asked for. I asked the Lord to heal my hip. It was a simple request, and yet a large step of faith for me.
And whether you believe me or not, that’s exactly what he did. I woke up one morning and went upstairs only to find that the stiff pain I usually felt in the morning was completely gone! I did a few stretches, moved around a bit and had no pain at all! It was totally bizarre! I started going over “logical” explanations in my head as to what could have happened… it probably popped back down in the middle of the night, and the muscles got loose, or whatever. And then I realized that the most “logical” answer of all was the fact that the Lord answered my prayer and healed my hip. I was in complete shock, but then realized why should I be shocked if I truly believe that the Lord is all powerful? We talk about it all the timely church… that he knows all and is all powerful but do we actually BELIEVE it? That is something I am trying to believe more. And probably a good thing that came out of being on a bus for 3 days.
Demons in the Night
I have never been one to have trouble sleeping. In fact, if I have a good pillow I can fall asleep pretty much anywhere (except moving vehicles). However, moving around gets tiring after 9 months and I was excited to learn that we would be living in the same place in Turkey for a whole 3 weeks! That is the longest I have stayed anywhere on this trip. We were living in the basement of a building in Turkey on pull out trundles, a pull out couch and 2 mattresses stacked on top of each other for a bit of height and I was excited to be LIVING somewhere. However, the first night I had trouble falling asleep. As a child, I dealt with pretty bad anxiety and feel as though the Lord has healed me from a lot of it over the years and yet that first night I found myself getting anxious over silly things. It took hours for me to fall asleep and in the morning I woke up not feeling rested at all. Little did I know this was to be the beginning of a long dark fight in the nights throughout my month in Turkey. Each night I would have trouble falling asleep. Anxiety would attack me about random things, as would negative thoughts towards myself whisper in my ear. The darkness brought about physical shadows and sounds that induced a paralyzing fear within me that I can’t really explain. But I know it was spiritual.
I expressed it to my teammates, and some of our friends that we had made in Turkey and came to find out that it was an incredibly common thing to have trouble sleeping in the area we were in. My teammates and I had numerous conversations with locals about how they were kept up at night, and did not feel rested in the morning.
As I’ve traveled throughout the world I have noticed that the devil and his demons come in many shapes, forms, and sizes, and use different tactics to attack us in our vulnerable human state.
I started to realize that the demons came in the night there in Turkey with whispers of fear, anxiety, and thoughts of worthlessness to those they attacked. I’m not sure if I am explaining it very well but I honestly began to fear the night. It was then that I realized that if even the smallest light broke through the darkness, why would I not ask the biggest light of all to intervene? As I said in my previous story the Lord is all powerful. James 2:19 says “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.” The war is already won. Even the demons are terrified. The Lord is continuing to teach me that fear, and anxiety about anything in life is pointless. The darkness has no power at all if we truly trust that the Lord is good and that his will is a perfect plan. Trust is a difficult thing, but when it is completely given, especially when it is given to the all powerful creator, I found that nothing dark can touch me or plague my brain. We were designed to rest in the light, not lie awake in the dark. And that was the biggest lesson I learned in Turkey.
Thank you so much for reading! I am on the last leg of my journey and would appreciate prayers for strength and endurance as I finish this last month and a half!
