Those are the words I so desperately long to hear from a little lady so dear to my heart. It’s not often enough that I hear them, and it was too often that I used to ask for the stories. Today, I wait around for those words to come, because I know now you can’t just ask for a story from eleven months spent seeing and experiencing things that should always and should never be experienced all at the same time. When I hear those six words, I hold onto all of the rest of the words following so tightly, each one a little present, a gift that my ears have the opportunity to hear.
I hold on to her stories because each one is filled with wisdom, filled with life, filled with hope, filled with hurt. The stories are heart break and overwhelming victory wrapped up into one. With each story, no matter if it’s eating fertilized duck eggs or the crossing of the Mozambique border, it shows the unfolding story of the journey Jesus is taking her on, and how He was, is, and will continue to be triumphant and victorious in her life. Each person she came in contact with in those eleven months in eleven different countries in four different continents, didn’t leave her presence without experiencing Jesus through her. I hold on to her stories because I love her, I want to hear all about how Jesus continues to be victorious in her life, and because my dream from the moment I found out these eleven months existed was to be pushed to the limits with Jesus too. So that my limits could be broken, and from there He could continue to rebuild me, completely rooted in Him.
This year of 2015 has been one of refinement. He has taken me twice to the continent I had the least desire to ever venture to. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because there were really cool people wrapped up in the middle there. I found out too that the Lord sometimes calls us to people, to learn from them, to grow alongside them, to be challenged by them, to love them. My hope in humanity was restored this year, and it’s only because I experienced people with the most authentic desire for Jesus alone.
The day I was driving away from my Peruvian home of three months, I heard the the slightest whisper that said “And so it begins.” Little did I know at the time what that may have meant, but I had a heart filled with hope and expectancy.
And so here is to another beginning.
When I am told to go, I trust, and fall to the ground with joy, pick myself back up, throw my shoe with excitement, compose myself for a quick second, and thank The Lord for this “yes” He has given me to be a part of The World Race, April 2016. Yep, it’s happening.
It’s not just happening, but I have complete confidence and trust in the Lord that this is the fulfillment of a longing that has been placed on my heart directly and only from The Lord himself. In this year of refinement, there was a specific region my heart had grown in abundance for. It’s the region of the world that calls upon the name of Jesus the least amount, the nations that want nothing to do with His name. In April 2016, I will be a part of the Expedition Route to the 10/40 window, the most unreached nations in the world to hearing and following Jesus’ name. My squad of thirty will be traveling throughout eleven different countries to spread the living and active gospel, and advance the kingdom in a region of the world that is desperate for Jesus. We are partnering with the Lord in this next season, and becoming a part of the work He is already orchestrating there. We pray for workers to arise and be sent out to the nations, and I am a servant, ready to be sent. I am expectant of the months to come, and know the Lord is advancing the gospel in these nations. He chooses to use His people. He chooses to work through us. He chooses to Love us. He chooses us, to work through us, and glorify Him in all that we do, so that one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.
I am a simple, unschooled ordinary girl, with nothing really to show for except this love and trust that I have for my Father, and the miracles that He has done in my life, and the miracles that I have seen take place in the lives of others. I can not help but speak of the things I have seen and heard. I can not help but sing His praises. Because I am simple, because I’m young, because I’m a girl, because I have no college degree, because I’ve got two hundred dollars in savings, because I studder over my words, all of these things make me unqualified and unsuccessful in the eyes of the world. But, in the Lord, I am more than qualified and more than capable. Because of these things, I can give Him glory all the more. If He can use a young, uneducated girl who is not all that awesome at speaking to shake the nations, how much more glory will be given to Him?
So one day, I will be able to to say “This one time on The Race…” To my especially good bud whose stories I so long to hear. One day, I will be able to say that to all of you, because I won’t be able to help but speak of the things I’ve seen and heard. In this next season, these nations will call on the name of Jesus, I have every confidence in this fact. My prayer is that the Lord uses my squad to become a part of His story to bring the gospel to the most unreached nations, and I have every confidence that He will.
My prayer too is that you will consider partnering with me in this next season, sending me out as a worker to the field both prayerfully and financially as the work to be done in these nations can not be done without prayer from supporters back home, and without provision from the Lord to get me there. Pray that the Lord will soften hearts and minds to the work for His kingdom that will be done in these nations. Pray that the Lord will miraculously provide for this trip in such a short amount of time, for it is only by His grace that something of this magnitude can occur. I am beyond excited and expectant to see how the Lord will show up, as He has so many times in the past, and as I know He will continue to.
The Lord knows exactly what He’s doing. I have every confidence in Him. So, I’m ready to go.
Here’s to eleven months in eleven places,
and eleven different nations hearing the Truth.
