Hello, friends! I hope you all are doing well!
I’ve had people ask why I switched from the January route to the June route, so I wanted to share that with you! (I’ve included a list of the countries on my route at the bottom of this post, for anyone who doesn’t know the new ones!)
There were 3 primary reasons I chose to switch routes:
Funds/preparation. Naturally, this gives me more time to prepare. However, it wasn’t necessarily a reason for switching routes. As I moved toward the January route, I was feeling confident the Lord would provide, though I knew I would be stretched. And I know that even with this much time, it is still up to the Lord to provide the means of going – whether I had six months, a year, two years, ten years, it is God who sends and who must provide. That said, there is a lot to do before I leave besides fundraising, from preparing legal documents, to getting vaccines, to buying gear, to finding someone to rent out my house for a year! So while I still don’t necessarily consider it a driving factor, when the time came to choose if I would stick with January or move to June, I had to consider how helpful extra time would be!
The countries. As I prepared to go on the January route, I began to find myself having trouble with country-based fundraising. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the countries on the June route, especially India and Ethiopia. I began to feel called to helping those in Ethiopia earlier this year, so that made sense. But, frankly, I hadn’t thought about India that much before. I never had a desire to go. With a current population of 1,356,036,653 people, it seemed like this crazy, crowded place that would just be too much for a person like me, who enjoys her personal space, hates lots of noise, and gets easily overwhelmed by crowds. (Haha…ha… I guess I did ask the Lord to push me out of my comfort zone.) But I just couldn’t get India out of my head. The people there, the children there, and, yeah, okay, the food there! *drools* Not to mention, the June route has Myanmar and Thailand on it, two countries that were in the January route – and the reason I chose the that January route in the first place!
The 10/40 window. Beyond extra time and my desire to visit specific countries, there is one last and extremely important reason for choosing this route. My team will be spending half the year in the 10/40 window. For those of you who don’t know, the 10/40 window is the area of the world that contains the highest concentration of unreached peoples. According to the Joshua Project, “Approximately 5.03 billion individuals residing in approximately 8,644 distinct people groups are in the revised 10/40 Window. 5,939 (68.7%) of these people groups are considered unreached and have a population of 3.05 billion. (Unreached: A people group whose number of followers of Christ and amount of resources make outside assistance necessary to reach the rest of the group with the gospel.) This means approximately 61% of the individuals in the 10/40 Window live in an unreached people group….The 10/40 Window is home to the majority of the world’s unevangelized countries. The “unevangelized” are people who have a minimal knowledge of the gospel, but have no valid opportunity to respond to it. While it constitutes only one-third of earth’s total land area, nearly two-thirds of the world’s people reside in the 10/40 Window.” It also is home to a vast majority of the world’s poor. And, because of the lack of gospel understanding, there is a large percentage of Christian persecution in these areas – from the state, from other religious groups, and from communities. In many places, conversion to Christianity can be life threatening and/or turn you into a pariah even among your loved ones. The Lord is increasing my compassion for these believers. I pray that somehow my team can show love to those who are lost and make a difference in the lives of believers in these places.
Click here to read more about the 10/40 window and why we ought to pray for those living there.
Since then, the Lord has only made it clearer that this was the right decision, especially through my teammates, as we get to know each other and as we pray for one another.
Please be praying for me and for my teammates as we lean on the Lord and learn to trust Him more. Please be praying as I battle against any doubt raised up against the truth of Christ. I do not know what the next couple years hold, but I know the One who does – and I know His great love, which will never let me go.
Please be praying for the countries we will visit next year. If you would like to know more about how to pray for them, feel free to email me using the “Contact” tab! Or you can wait a little longer and I will be posting (hopefully sooner rather than later) more about each country on this blog.
Thank you for reading! Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog so you can keep up to date on my journey – especially once the Race begins!!
All my love,
Carlyn
