I was ten years old once. I was a ten year old that would worry about everything there was to worry about. I believed that if my siblings played outside by themselves, they would most definitely be snatched up by a stranger never to be seen again. I would worry that my sister would fall in between the crack of the wall and her bed and suffocate while she was sleeping, morbid right? Who even thinks like that? The best one was when I would lie awake at night, planning an escape route for my family when an intruder came into our house, because it was only a matter of time before a murderer came to kill us all. My master plan went something like this: first, I would paint the tip of my air soft gun black instead of the orange signifying that it was actually a non lethal weapon, to intimidate the mass murderer who came to attack. I would approach the man wearing a ski mask and hold my painted tip air gun to his temple while I waved at my family to exit out the back door, so they could escape. I would pull the trigger after my fam was safe and sound releasing what he would think is solid brass and lead directly to his skull, but really it was just a shiny green pellet. The startling sensation to his temple might give me enough time to escape as well, but if not, that’s okay, because my whole entire family was safe, and that is what mattered. These are the thoughts I would fall asleep to before I woke up for my mom to drive me to elementary school the next day. The reason behind it all was this; my biggest fear on this earth was for something to happen to my mother, brother, sister, and father. News flash, if you know anything about my family, you know my biggest fear is now a reality I wake up with every morning, instead of a fear I would fall asleep with each night.
With that being said, I almost feel invincible now. People ask me why I’m about to walk into my “death sentence” without any fear at all, and it’s for several reasons. One, fear number one happened, and The Lord comforted me, loved me, pursued me, and rescued me daily through it. He prevailed in the midst of my worst nightmare, so what else do I have to fear? Two, The Lord has specifically led me to desire the people I am about to encounter. He has softened my heart to long for the persecuted an entire world away. He has spoken that He desires me to be a part of the work He has begun in these nations, so tell me, how can I refuse? Three, have you ever heard, “To live is Christ”? Well, I found out it’s true. Watching as The Lord shows up in the midst of impossible circumstances is truly living, if you ask me. My heart desires to see Him working, to see Him moving, and to be used by Him to be a part of the impossible, too. My life has never been more lived than the moment I chose Christ above everything and everyone else.
These past three years I have thought myself to be fearless, or so I believed. In actuality, what I was calling a lack of fear was really only apathy. As The Lord has renewed my heart and mind to love, to care, to be a little more in the likeness of who He has created me to be, unfortunately, fear has resurfaced as well. It looks a little different now, my twenty year old brain has different things to worry about other than making my air soft gun look intimidating. It looks a little more like this:
having people misconstrue the sole reason behind how I am living this life.
My fear, especially in this season of life, is that people will think I am about to leave for the reason of self gratification, because of “wanderlust”, because I am trying to enhance some level of cool that I actually never had in the first place.
Here’s the deal, If I wanted to have a “good time”, I wouldn’t be going to a country that ends in stan. If I was about to leave for eleven months for the purpose of my selfish ambitions and finding shallow “happiness”, I’d spend $17,000 on going to a country that ends in Zealand.
No, I am going to these specific eleven countries because I am pursuing my Father and King, Jesus Christ. He has pursued me, and from what I hear, a relationship is a two way street. I am honored to be a piece of the story The Lord is creating in these nations. I am going, because I can not help but speak of the things I have seen and heard to the people in which The Lord has grown my heart for.
Now that we have that all cleared up, here is some other news.
When you put yourself in situations that only The Lord can get you out of, He shows up. Meaning, when your faith is pressing at it’s limits, things unimaginable begin to happen. $17,561 is something only my Father can deal with, because every time I think of the number that is left to raise, I curl up in a little ball on my floor after making lattes all morning wondering how on planet earth is this supposed to come together. Then I start to remember how much He truly has brought together already. Like the couple who walked into the coffee shop one afternoon, they looked a little different, so I just had to ask where they were from. This led to them sharing their heart for Jesus, which led to sharing my heart for Jesus. A few days later I found myself on the floor again because this same different looking, Jesus loving couple from Colorado felt led to donate $500 towards The Race.
Or the fact that a beautiful little soul came up to me one Sunday and said that she just felt led to help me with this fundraising process. That’s how much The Lord knows us on an individual level folks, so much so that He knows how flaky, scatterbrained, and unorganized I am, that He has to orchestrate a much wiser, structured, and compassionate woman into my life to actually have these fundraisers happen. Three weeks after she told me what The Lord was leading her to do, she put together an entire spaghetti lunch, and $1000 had been raised that day.
I could tell you story after story about where the $7,500 came from thus far, only for the purpose of giving glory to my King who provided it for me, so that I may go and serve Him.
Ten thousand dollars. Yep, that is what’s left. If I am going to tell you the whole truth, today was one of those days where I had a mental break down. Partly because somehow the weird contraption I use at work to clean my espresso glasses in between pouring each shot sprayed some poor man in the face with a fountain of water instead of cleaning my little glass, and partly because my goal is to raise ten thousand dollars before I leave the country in forty three days.
The thing is though, ten thousand dollars WILL be raised, by The Lord and Him alone. In this impossible circumstance, He is going to show up, and give Glory to Himself through providing a girl that works at a coffee shop $17,561 to go and love His children of all nations. I freak out, for sure, but then I remember the God I serve, the one that made the galaxies in an instant. That number is nothing for Him.
