Hi poppa
How are you? I think I’m doing okay.
I’m reflecting back to these last eleven months and I’m filled with so many different emotions. I want to start at the beginning of all this. I remember poppa when you put it in my heart to sign up for the world race, at that point in my life I was pretty numb to a lot of different things. I felt you trying to break down the walls that I had bolted to keep you out. I was in so much pain that I didn’t know it. The day I signed up for the world race I felt this little light go off in my heart. I fought it, I was scared to sign up to something that would be out of my control. I would have to trust you fully and that was not something I was good at. Remember when I was accepted to the world race poppa, I was at work when they called and told me. I felt relief but then with relief came panic. How was I going to raise 18,700 dollars? How was I supposed to leave a job and go on something I knew so little about? I spent many long nights feeling frustrated at you. I couldn’t seem to fully get excited. I was so afraid of who I might become. I didn’t want to leave my friends, I didn’t want to leave the comfort of shutting my emotions off to the world. Then training camp came. I didn’t know what to expect. It was so much more, I felt as if I blinked and it was over. You told me at training camp to forgive people who had hurt me so deeply, I didn’t want to. How can you forgive people who’ve never asked but I tried when you asked me. Going back home after training camp I felt different. The days and months rushed together until finally my Launch day. I remember packing everything I had into a little blue bag and saying goodbye to a home that I had know for the past three years. On the plane to Georgia I was filled with so many emotions and felt claustrophobic with my own thoughts. I saw my team and my squad as strangers who would become so much more. That first travel day was a rush my blood was pounding in my ear, my senses were sharpened by fear or excitement. Oh then poppa, Belize my first county and it was beautiful you where so gentle with me. The fears started to slip slowly away and your people poppa that I meet so beautifully unique it took my breath away. I was happy that month, it had some kinks but it was good. Central America felt like I was home but not each country would provide its ups and downs. El Salvador was where I found my joy and my pain. I had been avoiding feeling much and yet again and again I felt you pressing into walls that slowly started to crumble and what was left behind was a broken scared girl who was angry at you. I look back now poppa and just want to hug her. I wrote things in my journal and yelled at you and it felt so good poppa to finally be honest with myself, I didn’t trust you. In my eyes you were the reason to so much of my pain. I feared you. You know what you did poppa, you let me yell, you let my lose my mind and you came and held me. You didn’t have to but you did. You started to heal the rejection, the pain, but most of all the feeling that I was unloved. That month I felt you with me, I talked and you listened and I laughed and felt your smile. With each country that slipped by to new continents that came I learned more and understood why you wanted me to do the race. It wasn’t to travel or meet the amazing people I did, no it was because poppa this was the change I needed to finally start hearing your voice. I wish I could say poppa from El Salvador everything was smooth sailing for us but I still struggled with fully trusting the goodness of who you are. That’s something I have to give to you every day. The things I’ve seen on the race have touched a part of me that I didn’t realize I needed. The people oh how they worship you in full with total trust and the funny thing is they don’t remind themselves of your goodness. No, in the pain they fall to their knees, hands raised to the heavens and worship you, and poppa that’s where I want to be. I’m in my last week and this week was hard. I was filled with fear. Going home and feeling so different and yet the same. Going back to the unknown is hard, going back to finding a job and a place to live is hard. Even though these things do cause me to panic and worry at times I hear you say ‘trust me’ and poppa I do. I thank you for the race. That was just the beginning to so much more. You really truly are good aren’t you? You love me and you breathed your breath in my lungs but most of all you are mine forever. For I have made up my mind to go your way the rest of my life.
Your daughter Praise
