Well, there are only a few more hours left at launch before we head to the airport to start our long trek to Bulgaria! I feel like I have been in Atlanta for forever! However, my time here has been very valuable. I volunteered to play the role of team treasurer, so I have a few extra training sessions. The treasurer tracks and manages the entire teams budget from month to month. I assumed that I would enjoy this position, but I have actually been geeking out about it! We will see if the enthusiasm stays as I actually start handling real money and writing real receipts!
The time I’ve had at launch to spend preparing with my team has been valuable as well! I am getting so excited about doing ministry with all of them! It’s been fun having this pre-race intentional team time to see some of each others strengths as well as quirks before we head into 11 months of intense community! Although I am excited to spend time with them, I am deeply going to miss being with the rest of my squad – especially since we are going to be split between four countries this first month (2 teams in Bulgaria, 2 in Serbia, 2 in Kosovo, and 1 in Macedonia)! We are also going to ALL NEW ministry sites (aka, World Race teams have never spent a full month at these places before)! At the end of each month we usually come together for a squad debrief, but because we are going to be so spread out, we won’t have that time. However, the race is always full of rumors, and rumor has it that we will have an all squad ministry month in Albania (month 2). Who knows, it’s always a mystery! Here is what I DO know (for now…):
July Bulgaria
August Albania
September Moldova
October Romania
November India
December Nepal
January South Africa
February Swaziland
March Botswana
April China
May Mongolia
We are going to be moving around every week in Bulgaria – city to city! Our first week we will be in a highly Muslim populated area, working with and loving on children! That’s as specific as it gets!
I leave Atlanta at 5:30am on Thursday and head to Charlotte, New York (I have an 11 hour layover in the big apple), Poland, and finally arrive in Bulgaria at 5:30pm on Friday! We most likely will need to stay at a nearby hostel for the night and hop on a bus to our ministry location the next day. Our host told us that we will literally have time to drop our bags off before heading off to begin our first day with the kids!
I still need about $5,000 to be fully funded! Prayerfully consider supporting me! I feel so blessed that I am the one who gets to be the hands and feet!
If you want to contact me directly while on the field, please email me at [email protected]. Thanks again for your support!
