The night before I left for launch, I was an emotional basket case. I honestly spent about 12 hours crying on and off with my best friend Jessica, while she helped me pack. I didn’t sleep at all, and then cried on and off the whole ride to the airport. I was so tired and caught up in emotion that I was feeling like I didn’t even want to do this anymore. But when I said my last goodbye at the airport and got on the plane, my heart flooded with peace, and God reminded me I am in His will.
SO, World Race launch was AMAZING. We met in Atlanta, GA and stayed in a very nice hotel and ate yummy food! Our squad and teams all got to reconnect with each other, which was great. We had powerful worship time together, and also had lots of trainings. The teachings were on safety and situational awareness (shout out to all my family members who talked about situational awareness :D), and also on our identity, and relationships with God and people.
One night during worship, I was down on my knees praising God, and I heard Him say to me in the most loving and gentle way, “I am pleased with you”. I was so blessed and filled with joy to know that I am pleasing my Pappa. Then He showed me a vision of me dancing and twirling around in a beautiful dress in a spacious green field with the bright, warm sun shining down on me. I was so peaceful and joyful, and I didn’t have a care in the world…..just like a little child. When I asked Him what it meant, He said He was showing me how He loves me as His daughter…He was showing me how He created me to be and how He sees me…and how He takes care of me. Wow. Talk about blessed. God also gave me a song one night during worship, which I am in the process of figuring out chords to! WOOO!
The night before we left, I was spending some time with some awesome friends that are alumni racers, Emmaly, Jeffery and Alyssa. Jeffery and Alyssa had a bunch of their friends there who had also been on the race, and I was so incredibly blessed to spend some time with them. I was even more blessed when they prayed over me to send me off!
The next morning we started our journey!
The itinerary: fly from Atlanta GA to Detroit MI, from Detroit to Amsterdam, Netherlands, from there to Kenya, Africa, where we had a 12 hour layover in the Nairobi airport, then to Ilongwe, Malawi. From there we bussed across the border to Chipata, Zambia, had two more 8 hour bus rides, and eventually arrived in Living Stone, Zambia: our ministry location!!!!!! This process took about 5 days. Can I just say, I am SO thankful to have a few weeks where I will not be traveling and packing my tent up every morning to move to a different place?
Here are some pictures from the journey!
(Plane ride to Georgia!)
(12 hour layover at the Nairobi airport)
(Heading to Malawi!!)
(Super jam packed bus ride!)
(Can I add this to my list of favorite flowers please?)
(First meal in Malawi!)
(Someone’s home in Zambia on the way to Living Stone)
