Uzbekistan Was Never Part of the Plan - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

Uzbekistan was never part of the plan. In fact, I didn’t even know this country existed until a couple of months ago let alone that I’d be living there for 3 weeks & would fall absolutely in love with this beautiful place. But here I am, already in Kyrgyzstan reminiscing on the craziest 3 weeks of my life.

It all started when Daniel, one of my squad mates, met a man in Turkey who knew a believer in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He briefly mentioned that he would love to host us & the Lord took it from there. Before we knew it Daniel was assembling a team & writing a proposal to go to Uzbekistan while the rest of the squad was in Kazakhstan. The week before they left I felt the Lord tell me “Landry, you are going to Uzbekistan & you are going to love the local believers there.” Emily, my co-squad leader also felt like I should go & that’s about all it took so the next morning I said “Daniel, I’m coming with you guys!!!” & He so graciously allowed me to join.

A week later, we hopped on a 3 day train & headed to this unknown country & the second we stepped into it everything went wrong. Our plan to stay in a hostel fell through, none of the ATM’s took our American cards, & because we didn’t have cash we couldn’t buy SIM cards or, you know, food. But then through the kindness of a barber shop owner, the mother of a 7 year old boy who gave kept giving me dandelions, a man at a café, & a woman who really needed our money, we managed to get Wi-Fi, food, SIM Cards, & a cheap place to lay our heads for the next couple of days. At the end of that day we took deep breaths & laughed as we realized these next 3 weeks were going to be a whole lot of walking by faith.

And they were & you know what? God showed up every single time.

That first day was just a tiny glimpse of the craziness that would come the next several weeks. Our team would get to work with an underground youth group, we would join an Ultimate Frisbee class, we would work in a coffee shop (!!!), we would get to pray for (& see!) healing over people, we got to lead a mother & her son to Christ, we got to see what an amazing community of believers looks like overseas, & we got to encourage/be encouraged by these believers. We experienced a ton of spiritual warfare, but it was always met with God’s protection & abundance. This country is also extremely fruitful. We would joke & say that everything we touched turned to gold. I mean it was wild, we felt as if we just had to show up somewhere & the Lord would make the most miraculous things happen.

***I truly wish with all my heart I could share some of these stories with you because I’ve never experienced anything like this in my whole life, but because we have to keep the privacy of the local believers I cannot share a lot of specific information online, (which is also why they are not in pictures below). But I would love nothing more than to grab coffee with you when I get home (in 2.5 months!!!) & share these amazing stories & experiences with you. God is so good & His glory deserves to be spread!

Overall, I think our time in Uzbekistan taught us how to walk by faith. We got to live out what we read in Genesis 12; that crazy faith that you see Abraham have, that promise that we will be blessed so that we may bless others. We got to see that in action. We got to step out in faith in ways we never have & we got to experience the abundant ways in which the Lord blessed us to then, in turn, bless others. It was 3 weeks that I will never, ever forget. 3 weeks of loving people radically & learning what total freedom in the Lord can look like. 3 weeks of walking by faith & saying “what the heck is God going to do next.” 3 weeks of complete joy & peace despite any circumstance. & The sweetest part of all is that it did not stop after these 3 weeks. This is now how I hope to live the rest of my life. Stepping out in faith when I have no idea where my feet will fall, but knowing that God will be there every time.

***As always when I think of all of the amazing things the Lord has gotten to do through our team I am immediately reminded that none of this would be possible without your financial support & your prayers. So, again, thank you thank you thank you for being my partner in this. You are participating in some crazy kingdom work here & it is changing lives. What a blessing you are to so many people (including myself!)!!! THANK YOU!