This year the Lord has been teaching me a ton on community and its importance to my walk. This began when my team and I went to Nong Khai, Thailand. Here we stayed with an amazing servant of the Lord, Sarisa. She was the only Christian in her village. Everyone else surrounding her was Buddhist. She had no Christian community. We had no idea she was a believer before we got to her house but saw a portrait of Jesus the moment we walked in. When she found out that we were missionaries she literally jumped for joy. We spent nearly two weeks providing her with a small Christian community. We brought her into our team and worshiped and did Bible studies with her. It was amazing to see how much she was able to open up and how much joy she experienced from having a community of believers around her. Sarisa does have a community of believers in her life, they just live in Bangkok which was 10 hours away and her husband who lives in London. Community gets its power from the day to day interactions.
In this time with Sarisa the Lord showed me something that broke my heart. Back in America people attend churches that have hundreds or even thousands of people but have no community within those churches. People back home are content having a solo relationship with the Father. You need this solo relationship, but life abundance comes, in my opinion, when you can live life out surrounded by believers. There are so many Americans who are passive about their community and are giving up tremendous blessings from community. Seeing how hungry Sarisa was for community and is unable to truly have it where she is and yet to know so many people back home who have community just waiting on them to step into it but they are just unwilling to take people into new areas of their life hurts my heart.
The past couple weeks the Lord has showed me the importance of my community to me. I love my community here on the Race and back home. I wouldn’t be who I am without their love for me, but He has truly showed me how important they are to me. Malaysia has probably been my favorite country so far. It was beautiful and had amazing food and wonderful people. I can’t wait to come back to Malaysia again someday. With that being said, Malaysia was probably the toughest month I have had on the race. It seems like Satan had a line of attacks ready to launch on me this month. When I fought through the first attack another would come out of nowhere. Each attack seemed to sting a little more and be a little more unexpected than the last. One of the tougher things I faced this month was finding out that Hanna was having some issues flair back up in part to her feeling a lack of community. Hanna is my older sister who has cerebral palsy. With her disability she has a hard time making friends. She feels like she is doing life alone and just wants to have a normal group of friends.
Having the amazing community I have both here on the Race and back at home I reached out to them and just talked about my amazing sister and where I was struggling. My community within the World Race prayed hard for me and just encouraged me to trust in Gods promises for my life and my sisters. My community back at home went above and beyond. They surrounded my sister when I was unable to do so. They have been loving her and have loved spending time with her. They have given me peace in being on the other side of the world while there are uncertainties going on back at home. I now know that Hanna has amazing trustworthy people around her ready and eager to love on her and to just be friends.
There have also been some other issues that have come up in the past week and again my community has been there with prayers, advice and ready to just listen to my heart. Through the struggles this month the Lord showed me the importance and blessing of having a community. Community is something I am passionate about because it has totally changed my life in the past year and I just want everyone I love and care about to be able to experience the joy that I have from having community. It is truly one of the greatest gifts from God.
I want to end this blog with just a thank you. First off to everyone on the World Race with me. I have been able to open with y’all the past few days at debrief and I have experienced nothing but love from you. Too many of y’all to name. Next, I want to thank all my friends who have surrounded my sister for me with love. Ellie, Valeria, Ella Hay, Morgan and so many other. I love you guys and you have no idea how grateful I am to have you in my life and to call you friends.
Also, I am still fundraising. I am about $5,000 short of my final deadline. I have had some amazing friends at home make me an adopt a box back at home and that should get me to my final goal. Once they all get back from spring break, I will start posting about it on social media. Until then feel free to make any donations that the Lord leads you to. Nothing is too small or too large. Also pleas be praying for me as I am still working through some things and my sister as well.
