Since being on this Race, so many things have happened; far to many to explain in blogs, pictures, videos or Facebook posts. This year has been absolutely incredible and I’ve learned so much, and I want to share what the Lord has taught me and what He can teach you through the testimonies of this year.
I asked friends and family to send me questions to answer that they have about what I did this year, and I want to answer them openly and honestly, so here are your questions and my answers!
Where and how do you think you made the biggest difference in peoples’ lives?
Physically, I think we made the biggest difference in Rwanda through our health clinics and the crusade. Many people received health care and the gospel for the first time through those events and that was very impactful
Spiritually, I think we made the biggest difference by sharing our testimonies with people. I learned that there is power in our stories, and even if we feel like we don’t have a crazy story, it makes a huge difference when we are able to be vulnerable and willing to share our walk with Jesus openly with others.
What was the most rewarding part? The best memory you have? And the biggest challenge?
The most rewarding part of this year was forming personal discipline. Through living with others, navigating different cultures, and the responsibility of teaching and preaching, I had to develop a lot of new disciplines, like being organized and aware of others, reading my bible daily, and other things like that. They’re not super fun things to do, but I’ve for sure seen the fruit of that.
My favorite memory from the race was one night at debrief in Uganda, a group of us in our hostel decided to pull out a guitar and just jam out to worship. It started out really serious and worshipful and it was beautiful, and then it just turned into this joyful time of naming random words and trying to make songs out of them. I definatly laughed the hardest I have laughed all year that night.
The biggest challenge has been being fully invested in people every month. After a whole, it gets hard to go to a new place and be really intentional about loving people and forming relationships. Honestly, it gets exhausting, and making that choice to keep loving me people every month gets harder and harder as time goes on. It’s something that I’ve really had to take to the Lord to overcome to keep myself from.becoming distant and complacent with people when I just don’t have the energy to pour into people the way I want to. Luckily the Lord has given me the strength to keep doing that, but I’m not going to lie, that is a struggle.
What was different than you had anticipated?
I think ministry has looked different than I expected. Before the race, is pretty much only done worship ministry and manual labor. I knew we would be doing more relational ministry, like evangelism and teaching, but I had no idea what that would look like. This race has DRASRICALLY changed my perspective on evangelism. It’s not shoving a bible in people’s faces but just meeting them where they are, being willing to listen, and bringing the truth of Jesus into it. And many people around the world are super willing to hear what you have to say, which is also very different from what I expected.
What surprised you the most on your journey?
First arriving in Africa was a surprise. I tried not to have expectations of Africa, but to be honest, it’s really hard to shake those images of starving children in the desert that you always see on the media. We landed in Rwanda and it was so green, and Kigali was such a beautiful city as well. We were living in a village, but we had such a beautiful community surrounding us, and an amazing church that was so encouraging. Then the next month we were living in Kampala, Uganda, and once again, everything was green, and the city was pretty nice, and most people spoke better English than we did. I was very pleasantly surprised by Africa for sure!
If you still have questions, feel free to ask me anything and I’ll add my answers here!
