Hi everyone. Sorry I’ve been a bit MIA the past couple months. So much has changed.
I’m no longer in Australia. Due to COVID-19 all study abroad students from UMD were asked to return home to ensure health and safety. I made it home safe and sound within a week of their request of us to return. Processing this has been difficult in and of itself. I was just getting used to life in Perth, settling into a new normal, becoming comfortable with my classes and friends, and genuinely starting to enjoy myself. This all changed quickly as I found myself sitting at my desk in Onalaska, WI trying to reschedule all my classes so I don’t have to wake up at 3 a.m. to make it to discussion.
So then I was getting used to quarantine, time calculation from Australian due dates to US time, and making it to discussions with my classmates who were also tuning in from their homes. And then it was time for break. We had two weeks off. So once again, my routine and plans were uprooted.
Then I face another change- a decision that will change my plans yet again. During the whole process of applying and being accepted to The World Race, I realized that I can graduate in only one more semester of school. With all the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and launch dates getting pushed back to September, I realized I don’t want to risk wasting a semester’s worth of time waiting to see if we will launch. So then came the choice. Do I join a January team and graduate school this fall, or risk it?
It seemed like a hard choice at first, but the more I prayed, thought, and deliberated, it became clear.
So the bittersweet news is that I’ll be graduating in December and launching for South Africa, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ethiopia, Nepal, South Asia, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia in January. I’m so sad to be leaving my October team and the friendships we’ve already started to form, but I know God will use me wherever I’m at and whoever I’m with. To me, it makes sense to be closing one chapter of my life before I start another, so I’m excited to be spending my last semester at UMD with all of my friends.
In all of this, God’s reinforced the importance of leaning on him and letting go of the control I so badly want to take over my own life. It reminds me of the verse in Matthew 6, “…do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I can’t go on making my own plans without recognizing that at any moment they could change. I’ve prayed the prayer many times “God your will, in your time” and that prayer strips me of all control; it truly puts God in the driver’s seat. Praying that prayer allows God to lay the path in places I never would have planned or desired to go.
So in all of this, I am excited. A friend from the October team challenged me to think if this decision was being made because I was running from fear, or chasing joy. I’ve come to realize, I truly am chasing joy. Worry may have been the catalyst to seek out my options, but the more I think about it, the more I’m excited about it. I get to finish this semester with all of my friends who would have been graduated when I went back for my last semester, I get to live with my best friends for one last semester, I will have GRADUATED in three and a half years, I won’t have to miss Christmas with my family, I still get to see and meet all of my October route friends at training camp, and I get to serve in Africa along with some of the countries I was originally supposed to travel to.
So here’s to a fresh start. Thanks for reading.
