Dear P squad,
My name is Brian Cooke, and you changed my life.
Most of you know my story, but this is to let you in a little further. I met you all in late November at your 4 month debrief. I was the hostel manager at Mabuya Camp in Lilongwe Malawi. I was not Christian and made fun of you all behind your back before I had ever met any of you. You walked off 3 busses wearing “I love Jesus” shirts…..seeing this, I….. along with some locals took a shot of vodka at the bar in preparation. I spent Thanksgiving with some of you (Stacey Compton 2 years in a row). I heard some of your stories about the first few months of your race. I met Mr. and Mrs. Hines, Sean Smith and your amazing WR coaches, the Day’s. I even spent my 21st birthday with some of you!!! But what you don’t know about me was…..I was watching you, very closely….. And from watching you, talking to some of you and getting to know most of you, you led me to accept Christ 1 month later and my life has been a roller coaster ride ever since.
P Squad, I can not thank you all enough for what you have done in my life. I stop dead in my tracks sometimes, (like I did today and decided to write this) and think about how much the Lord used each one of you to bring me to Him. How much you have done to help me with my walk with Him. If it wasn’t for your continual words and prayers, I would not have continued to walk with the Lord today. And for my race, I could NOT have done this with out your words, prayers and amazing financial support!!! It baffles me to think of what my life would look like right now if you all didn’t come into my life. I hear stories from other people on my squad about meeting a world racer and deciding to go on the race. But to think about how blessed I am to have met an entire squad!!! 65 amazing men and women of God, blows my mind.
I am in Malaysia right now writing this. My month 7 of my race and your month 11. I am looking at photo albums from our contact with pictures of YOU!! We are building a church that YOU started. YOUR hands laid the bricks that I am building on. Lucas, Phil, Michelle, Julian, Colby, Alexandra, Alicia, Rachel, Cristal, Falco YOU were here!!!! This BLOWS MY MIND!!! I am on month 7 of my world race just having accepting Christ almost 1 ½ years ago. I will spend month 11 in Malawi, where I first met you and accepted the Lord.
Crazy to think, but you want to know how I accepted God? It wasn’t from you preaching the Gospel a million times, I only heard you talk about Jesus to me a few times actually. It wasn’t the worship music you played on the couches right outside my bar. It was the way you lived your lives!!! It was how you loved each other!! It was the way you loved ME!! You didn’t even know me and you loved me!! It was the way you loved the Lord and LIFE!!!! THAT is what turned me to Christ. It was Jesus’ love that exuded out of your pours, words and actions!!! That is amazing!!! To think, you all were at debrief and were there to relax after a 72 hour bus ride from hell!!! Yet the time when you were suppose to be relaxing and calming down….you changed my life!!!!
I want to go through each one of you and thank you all, but I can’t. But I do want to highlight one of you…. Ms. Stacey Compton, come down to the front please…
If you didn’t know, Ms. Compton went from being P squads logistics to B squads squad leader, and I couldn’t have been more excited!!! Stacey, you were such a calming soul to be around my first couple of months, a familiar face to look at and know you have my back. But most of all, a constant reminder of P squad as a whole. A constant face to look at and tell myself, SHE changed my life. YOU and your entire squad changed my life!!! Stacey, you have been such an amazing blessing to me on my race and I love you so much!!!
So to sum up this letter in a few sentences. P squad, thank you for changing my life. I love each and every single one of you with all of my heart and will never forget what you did for me and how much you changed my life.
Love, your brother in Christ,
Brian Cooke 🙂
