I never wanted to come to China, in fact it was the country on my world race route that I was dreading. As our time in Vietnam came to a close and China crept up on me I started to freak. If I could have skipped month four and headed straight into month five in Africa I would have.
After all I hadn’t really wanted to come to Asia.
It is funny how God uses the countries you don’t want to visit to teach you the most and the continents you aren’t excited to see to slowly soften your heart.
Here in China my team and I were placed with a foster home for the month. My immediate expectation was that I would get to play with children for a whole month. Having not really had that opportunity on the race yet I was super excited!
Photo courtesy of: www.facebook.com/NewDayFosterHome
Expectation; a strong belief that something will happen
On the race I am learning more and more not to expect but to just let God work out his plan. After all his plan is the right one, at the right time, even if you don’t understand why.
In fact for the first week and half the only time I went into the foster home was for our orientation. Instead my team and I got to spend time together, bonding as a team whilst cleaning out storage rooms, painting an apartment and constructing IKEA furniture.
It is so important when you are on the race to not only pour into your contacts but also to those on your team, after all these are the people you are with day in day out, the ones who God has placed alongside you to sharpen you, to make you more into the man or woman of God that he has called you to be. Those relationships need to be invested in.
When we were scheduled to go into the foster home it was more special than if we had been in there right from the beginning and I will treasure the precious eight days I got to spend in the home. For the majority of the time in the foster home Heather and I were with the babies, this meant we didn’t really see the rest of the team much, making those moments when we were cleaning and painting together more precious.
Photo courtesy of: www.facebook.com/NewDayFosterHome
But God was not done with taking me out of my comfort zone, there was one day when both Andrew and Jay wanted to spend the day with the babies, so I went to be with the pre-school on my own. Children of pre-school age are less likely to want you coo’ing over them and for the most part I had to let them become comfortable with me before I was able to really win over their trust.
That whole morning I had one friend and although I found being with the pre-school children on my own challenging this little boy melted my heart and made it all worth it. He has the best smile ever, it lifted my mood and made me feel loved. He was a reminder that God is faithful, God is loving and God cares.
Photo courtesy of: www.facebook.com/NewDayFosterHome
I came away from my time in pre-school excited to be reunited with the babies the next day but glad to have had the opportunity to see more of the children here and to love on them as well.
So as my four month stint in Asia comes to an end I find myself asking if I would return to Asia or China again and the answer to both is yes!
If you want to read more about the organisation I worked with this month you can visit their website here:
http://newdaycreations.com/foster/
They also have a blog which they update regularly and is definitely worth a read:
http://newdayfosterhome.blogspot.com/
Also like them on Facebook to keep updated on what is going on day to day:
https://www.facebook.com/NewDayFosterHome
It’s time for Africa!
Here is a video my team Kingdom Builders made in preparation for heading to Africa for months 5, 6 and 7 of our race:
Support Update:
I still need an additional $2500 (£1600) in order to be fully funded for the race, if you feel called to support me you can do so by clicking here.
