67 DAYS 5 HRS 16 MINS 18 SECONDS!
That is the amount of time we have until we land in the United States.
The amount of time we have left to soak up our time together as a squad.
The amount of time we have to love on these beautiful people in Africa.
The amount of time we have to seek out the Father’s plan for us here before we leave.
The amount of time we have to figure out what in the heck we are going to do with our lives once we get home.
9 weeks.
NINE WEEKS!
It feels like yesterday that my coworker forced me to tell my boss I was quitting.
That I finally announced I was committing to this trip (a whole 6 months after getting accepted).
It seems like yesterday when I was choking back tears as I kissed my sleeping 6 year old best friend of a nephew on the forehead to tell him goodbye for a year.
It seems like yesterday that we arrived in Belize to work with a pastor, pregnancy center, and dance school.
That we were in Honduras working with an orphanage for handicapped adults.
That we were evangelizing to the homeless men and living on a 3rd world remote island in El Salvador.
That we were teaching English at children’s learning centers and trying to find any evangelism opportunity in the closed country of Vietnam.
That we were sweating our butts off in Cambodia, street evangelizing at the night markets on Pub Street.
That we were scooping poop, whitewashing walls, and hauling trees on a farm in Albania.
That we were prayer walking the city every day and building relationships with locals in Serbia.
That we were partnering with a church and doing children’s outreach in the gypsy villages of Romania.
It seems like just yesterday that we landed here in Ethiopia to work with HOPEthiopia to teach, work on a sanitation project, reforestation project, make bricks, and love on the children of the orphanage that’s on the compound we are living in.
It seems like yesterday yet, we already only have 8 more days left here before leaving for our 10th month in Rwanda.
I’ve been terrible at blog updates for all of you. When we were asked to have one posted this week- I sat staring at my computer for almost an hour. There is SO MUCH that has happened, so much God has done, so much that I could write stories about but my writing brain is completely blocked. There’s so much up there that there’s nothing. Explain that.
Normally I would try to write something with cleverly crafted words- something that would pull at your heart strings or maybe something to make you laugh – but today, you get to experience the ramblings of my confused brain trying to correlate with my overwhelmed heart and they dont know what they want or how to feel.
My emotions are a mess and my brain is all jumbled with all the things. The only thing I can do is sit and think about where the time has gone and everything that we have seen/experienced/done the last nine months. I was giggling to myself, overwhelmed with joy and exhaustion at once, and trying to keep tears from welling up in my eyes.
I remember the dramatics of telling people that I’ll be gone and away from my family and friends for an ENTIRE YEAR – yet here I am wondering where in the world that year went!?
The faces of all the people, hosts, and children that we have talked to, loved on, and prayed for, keep playing as a slideshow in my mind. I keep praying that God continues to sow the seeds that were planted over the last nine months and wishing now that I could extend my time in each country.
Dont get me wrong, I am more excited than anything to go home – I was crying on the bus on Saturday because I was imagining the literal overwhelming love from my family, friends, and church family when I get home. (Like I said a few lines back, my emotions are a mess.)But at the same time – I want to continue living this ridiculously exciting, exhausting, spiritually filling, and adventurous life for the Kingdom with these 32 strangers that are now family.
SO – accepting that I’m not going to figure all my thoughts and emotions out in the next 10 minutes to write you a blog that catches you up on everything, let me just tell you this…
My God is SO GOOD. He is alive and moving. He is changing and transforming lives all around the world. I am so humbled to be even a sliver of the movement that is taking place for Jesus Christ. I am going to take each of these 67 days I have left here as the gift that it is, I’m going to love hard, and continue to seek the Lord in everything I do.
Please keep me and my squad in your prayers as we spend the next nine weeks in Rwanda and Uganda spreading the gospel to as many as possible. Pray for provision, safety, health, and for an easy (as possible) reintegration back in to the US. Also that plans for post World Race would be revealed and confirmed.
I love and miss you all.
NINE WEEKS! Have a hug ready for my return.
If you have any questions or things you want to be updated on (blog ideas for me) comment below and I will get you all up to speed the best I can!
