Hello everyone tuned into my personal blog throughout my adventure with the Lord and the World Race! This week has been one of the most Intense, eye opening, and revealing times of my life. Never did I think that going on a trip like this could really open myself up. Soooo here’s a recap of this week. Last Wednesday I stepped foot on the grounds of Adventures in Missions in Gainesville, GA where I was to stay for 4 days until we traveled our way to Quito Ecuador. On this first day my body was filled with anxious thoughts, What if they don’t like me? Will I be able to answer all questions about the Lord? Am I ready for this?
Walking in I was greeted with so much warmth and kindness that most of the anxious feels were slipping away. I met my team and they were AWESOME, so much life in each of them! and again the feels were going away. We followed our meet and greet with a dinner with parents, said the goodbyes and started our time of Worship. Now, growing up Catholic I’m used to very formal masses and a priest so serious giving his sermons at his podium sitting still side by side in pews….. this was far from that! Each person stood up as we sang our hearts out with love and praise. This was a very powerful time and I was filled with joy and happiness getting to praise his name in this new way! Through out the few days we had sessions and speakers, teaching us their knowledge and wisdom on the fields with world race. Many incorporated ways for our teams to practice some exercises together to open up our minds and to give feedback. Which at times were difficult but our team was always confident and showed faith in one another that the task could be completed. Each day was filled with new adventures including food from different parts of the world, BUCKET SHOWERS, using personal times to walk to a lake, and experiencing a prayer tunnel.. now that is something so surreal and was something each person needed before the race. One of our speakers Jeremy, was known for his ways of healing the sick and injured. Now most people don’t truly open up their hearts to it, but on that day I was called upon him to come on stage ( prior to training camp I sprained my ankle) I was so worried that it would either not work or even work. After he laid his hands upon my ankle I felt a warm presence through my body which at that point I knew I had encountered the Holy Spirit! I was able to walk without discomfort instead of limping and I would take that ANYDAY. Anyway off topic lol, we were all lined up to receive our prayers that our leaders should cast upon us now the tunnel grew as after each person was finished was added to the tunnel. All the encouraging words of affirmation filled our bodies and made us feel the Lords love through his children. The next few days went on as we took it all in, some days weren’t easy giving our testimonies, or sharing vulnerability, or even using porta potties ??(sorry had to slide that in). As we laid in our sleeping bags one last time we each reflected on the past four days with more positivity to endure this mission!
TRAVEL DAY:
wow oh wow, the day had finally come that each of us on my team were making our ways to a whole new country to serve our Lord! We set out early Sunday morning to the Atlanta airport, got some breakfast and waited on our flight! At 2:00 we headed to the gates where we flew out to Fort Lauderdale. Once getting off it wasn’t a very good start with some girls getting motion sickness and a few actually sick. But we made it one step further to our destination. Around 8:00 we started to bored for ECUADOR, at this point everyone was EXHAUSTED and ready to just sleep on the plane lol. We sat back for 3 hours and BOOM we made it. We set out to claim our bags and meet our new host, Fabi. He runs up to our leader with a big smile on his face and in his world race gear and gets us to our bus, heading to Inca Link! Boy were we excited but also half asleep. We couldn’t wait to see it all in the morning! The next few days we helped around the Inca Link house, walked 40 min to the NEAREST grocery store, and found a cute pizza place around the corner WITH WIFI. I’m sure that’s where I’ll be making all these blog posts and keeping my family updated! I’m forever grateful that the lord chose me for this journey to serve under him and having me cash in all my chips isn’t too bad after all! Stay tuned for next weeks blog on my first week working in the ministries!!
