I want to start this blog by saying it’s long. The month of Kazakhstan was one the hardest and most transformational months of my life. To put into words took me two weeks to meditate on it. Welcome to Kazakhstan and how it changed my life forever.
Last time I wrote I was in Mongolia and I was with my team at debrief. Since then it seems like the World has changed and I am a different man. The best way I can express it is by splitting it up into 3 mountains God conquered in my life this month.
Mountain 1-Who am I?
This mountain started by being detoured from a mountain I thought I was going to experience but God had other plans. That mountain was China. I was attempting to go into China at the end of August with my team, but I was denied access into China because I visited Taiwan earlier in the year. My O’hana family all had been approved and they carried on to China with the hopes that I could re-apply to get a visa into China. That hope was short lived. Getting a visa into China from Mongolia as an American is not an easy process. I could tell you how crazy it is but, long story short, best case scenario is 1.5 weeks for a visa, worst case is 3 weeks. So, I stayed behind while my team traveled to China and I felt alone. This feeling really hit me hard because I had just done a month away from home in Colorado and home with this new family. I cried in front of them, I lost my cool in front of them, we dug fences in Mongolia with this team, I showed them the good parts and ugly parts of my past, I lived with them everyday for a month straight. They were my family and my safe place on this side of the World. They continued to China and I felt forgotten and like I was not valued. Both are past hurts of mine which stung really deep that day they left on the train. I stayed with a another team called Agape for two weeks while I tried to re-apply for a visa into China while Agape applied for Visas. I was denied again, and which meant I was without my family for a month and it was time to head to Kazakhstan while my team was in China. Two different mountains.
I traveled to Kazakhstan with my squad leader Tom where we would wait for the next 2.5 weeks for the squad to join us after China. What I could not foresee was the way that God was going to work in that time. I started to lean into my squad leader Tom. This man I can’t put into words how thankful I am for him and the time I was able to spend with him. Tom is 26 years old and has done the race before and I was able to listen to him and learn from him in a personal way, one-on-one way. We went through a little study about the difference between the body, soul, and your spirit. This pushed me to ask more questions about me.
This is the first time I have ever been away from family or friends for more then a month. Away from influence of anything from home or any of my new family on the race. I was questioned about how I find worth, security, love, and acceptance in all the different areas of my life. Then, I was asked ‘Who am I?’ without any influence. I was stuck. I have usually based my life on what I do for a career, for others, what the world describes me as or for fun but I have never stripped down myself to the core of who I am. I started down a path of realizing who I am and who God created me to be.
I will always finding out new things about who I am and to find my place in this crazy big world I am seeing. I am looking to find what God has said about me. Stayed tuned, I think that will be my next blog post about who we are in Christ.
Mountain 2-Do I really belong here?
On this race I have had a lot of fantastic times that from wrestling sheep in Mongolia to trying on traditional clothes in Kyrgyzstan to playing soccer with guys from Swaziland to all the laughs and memories made with my team. With good times come hard times. This is the first time I have really been away from home. I went to CU, but I still was only a 20-minute drive from home. Sometimes I really miss home and I question if I really deserve to be here or if this is Gods calling. I have never missed a holiday at home and this Halloween was the first one I missed. I really fell hard and had serous thoughts about going home.
I just meet back up with team when they got back from China. They provided a lot of comfort, but it is hard to replace Mamas hugs in the mornings or Dads wisdom right when you need it or your brothers who you can wrestle with and always win. I felt more alone then ever and was ready to pull the plug. TJ is one of my teammates and he has the most in depth understanding and knowledge I have ever witnessed. He pointed me towards James 1 which talks about trials. James 1:4 “Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” I held onto this truth as I searched for more confirmation that I was supposed to be here.
In Kazakhstan there are mountains that are a 15 min bus ride from the city and really reminded me of Colorado, so I took a day to go up into the mountains. They have snow up in the mountains and these mountains are fiercer than in Colorado. I sat at the base of an intense mountain side and God captured my mind and we went on a crazy journey. At the end of this journey I came to a crazy yet calming conclusion. God created the mountains, the trees, the birds, the oceans, and everything in between with such accuracy and perfection that makes no sense other than that he has control over it all. Life is basically on razors edge. The amount of detail and accuracy that the world was created only points to a creator. That same creator has created this exact moment with me in this race. I was created to be in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and hopefully the other countries that are left on race. These moments cannot be mistake.
Mountain 3-Nicotine
This last mountain is a mountain that I have faced for the past three years of my life and is not something I am proud of. I have been addicted to nicotine for the past three years from vapes, to cigarettes and to chewing tobacco. I thought this was something that I could conquer when I headed on this race journey. I started off strong in the month of Mongolia but with my team gone and the overwhelming feelings of being alone I fell back into it. It started off being very innocent, but the devil only needs a small foothold to grow an evil seed inside of you. I quickly ramped up to start smoking 5 or 6 cigarettes a day and struggled. I told my team about at the end of the month in Kazakhstan and I told myself I was going to quit and needed help from the team to quit. They did.
I told myself on the 28th of October I was done and that night I went to bed and I had a bizarre dream. In this dream I was out working in the yard and then I walked back inside the house and I was going to lock the door and then all sudden this crazy tall figure busted down my front door and broke my door lock. Then, it screamed at me. I woke up in a sweat at 3 AM. It took me an awhile to fall back asleep and tried to think nothing of it. I always forget my dreams in the mornings, so I didn’t think any differently of this one at the time. I woke up that morning and I knew something was off. It felt as though I had 15 different voices in my head. Literally, I had an argument if I should breakfast or not or what to eat. I drove myself in circles over what I should eat, what clothes to wear, if I was hot or cold, if I should eat chocolate or not (if you know me at all, is always a yes but I that morning I couldn’t decide) and so many other small ordinary decisions that I couldn’t decide. I was going crazy.
I thought I was crazy for thinking it, but I told my team about it after a couple days of it. They told me it was spiritual, and I have never really believed in that. I always thought that spirits were something that Jesus spoke out of people way back in the New Testament. Not something in this century, defiantly something I wouldn’t ever see or witness. I walked away from the team and trusted what they said. I decided I needed to fight this so the next day I fasted from all food. I was sitting with my team late in the afternoon and my head started screaming 15 voices in my head and I felt like my body was building up so much pressure in my mind that my head was going to blow up. I went into the other room and I knew it was time to battle this out.
I entered a deep spiritual battle that I cannot truly put into words. I attempted in my journal setting the scene at my grandfather’s lake in Tennessee (that’s where I see God and walk with him when I pray). I was sitting in the middle island and the area around me had like a force field around me. I was looking for Jesus and I could see him barely on the other side of this force field. I reached out and grabbed Jesus and linked our arms together. I started screaming at the demon “I want Jesus. In Jesus’s name you have no power here! GET OUT OF HERE!” The demon fought but my arm was linked with Jesus and left. My whole body jolted and felt this feeling that something just left my body. I felt like I just started breathing again. The voices where gone. I went back to the lake and Jesus was sitting right there. Clear and present.
I haven’t had a cigarette craving since.
As I reflect on the three mountains, I faced in Kazakhstan I see how dark it was but how beautiful it is sitting with those trials behind me. I remember praying at the end of Mongolia that I really wanted to experience God at a deeper level then ever before. 1 John 5:15 says “And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.” He gave me what I asked for, not how I thought he was going to do it, but I am thankful that He did it His way.
