Wooooah livin’ on a (whole bunch of) prayer. Cue Bon Jovi.
We hit month 7 and we made it to Europe!! 2 continents down, 2 to go.
We loved our time in Africa. The WiFi was spotty which is why I might have seemed a little distant, but we built some incredible relationships which easily made up for it. June was “all squad month” which was a unique opportunity to work as a bigger group, stay in one place longer than 2 weeks (which never happened on Team CAKE), get to know more squadmates on a deeper level, and partner with an amazing ministry in Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa called Global Challenge. It was a time of adapting and ~transitions~ for all of us.
We got new teams! We knew this was coming and everyone on Team CAKE was dreading it because of how well we got along together for the first 6 months of the race. However, I deepened my friendships with all 18 members of the squad over the course of the month, which got me excited for new teammates – even though I do miss my old ones. (Ily forever America, Kaelyn, and Emily aka Raisin, Flam, and Sunshine.)
I am now a proud member of Team Americanos! My new teammates are Tanner, Ronny, and Jenna (aka Rabbi, Ronito, and Yarna – sue me, I like nick names ¯_(?)_/¯ ) and I couldn’t be more thankful or proud of how united we are together, expectant of what God is going to do over the next few months.
Going from an all girls team to a coed one, becoming a team leader, and changing continents has brought on a lot of changes for the second half of the race, but I’m so excited for what the Lord has in store for Team Americanos. Last week, we flew into Sofia, Bulgaria, where we stayed for three days, and then we felt the Lord calling us to Thessaloniki, Greece for another three days. We met amazing people in both locations, and the Lord opened incredible opportunities for us to minister to them. I’m honestly in awe of how well the four of us balance each other out and complement each other’s gifts already. It gets me stoked for all of the people we will get to meet over the next two months because of the way the Lord has uniquely crafted us individually and collectively! Now we are in Skopje, Macedonia, and Lord willing, we’ll be headed to Belgrade, Serbia next. While in Europe, we’ve been given the freedom to travel as we feel the Lord moving us, and we are not confined to any particular country. We’re just prayerfully working our way from Eastern Europe to Spain, where we will walk one section of the Camino for ten days in August.
Originally I was hoping to stay in a only a few cities in Europe for longer periods of time because it’s more conducive for building meaningful and impactful relationships. Sometimes it seems like it’s hard to do that in three or four days. However, when we were put on our new teams, our squad leader Jacob spoke a verse over us that we all prayed into, which changed my perspective. The verse was Proverbs 30:25-28, which is fitting since we are on a team of four and the smallest team in our squad.
“Four things are small on the earth,
But they are exceedingly wise:
The ants are not a strong people,
But they prepare their food in the summer;
The shephanim are not mighty people,
Yet they make their houses in the rocks;
The locusts have no king,
Yet all of them go out in ranks;
The lizard you may grasp with the hands,
Yet it is in kings’ palaces.”
We specifically felt the Lord speaking to us about the lizard in verse 28. All four of us on the team feel like God is going to bring us into amazing yet unlikely situations that we could not possibly expect or coordinate in our own doing. This (along with a lot of prayer and open doors from God) personally gave me peace about staying so mobile, moving from one city to the next every few days, and seeking the Lord about going to so many places in such a small period of time. He also blessed me with a pretty extraverted team, with people who begin relationships very quickly and naturally, and I’ve already seen the impact they’ve had on people they meet and say a tearful goodbye to in a span of three days.
We’ve been blessed with contacts throughout Europe who have offered us free lodging as we pass through, which has helped us stretch our budget for long distance travel a little bit. Even though we will be in some countries for three days, rather than thirty, we still have the same mission we’ve had throughout the race and hope to continue throughout our lives: to love the people in front of us, be the body of Christ, and point people to Him.
Now that we’re in Europe with more reliable WiFi, I hope to get updates out a little more consistently! Thank you to everyone who has reached out and checked on me! I’m continually in awe of the love you show me and the way God has shown up these past six months. All glory to Him.
