As I lay here in my hammock, I think to myself how did I get here? Right now we are still in South Africa, yes I know I should be in Swaziland but as you probably know by now the World Race rarely goes as planned. Our squad has been spoken over many times about how we are different and how it is coming true. Other squads have never spent 2 months in one country but we have. The past month in a half we have been trying to get visas to go to india and the embassy keeps sending them back to us to redo etc. It has been such a long process. As we sat at debrief at the end of month 4 in Nelspruit we realized we weren’t going anywhere for awhile because the embassy has our passports and we can’t go to Swaziland without them. We knew due to finances we couldn’t stay at the current hostel we were in a bind and a squad mate of mine goggled churches in the local area. She found a church called Manna and we called to ask if the 45 of us could stay with them and serve their church. I am sure there was pure silence on the other line with such a ghastly request but they accepted. We left our hostel and headed to Manna. We pitched our tents and felt like real world racers. We were all so excited to use our gear until every single night it poured rain and we were never dry. We experienced high winds that broke a few tents, sleeping in water basically, amazing cooked meals by our squadmates and cold showers. Now this is what the world race is about! While at Manna my team weeded a garden for hours a day in extreme sun and heat but had a blast doing it. We literally have been so blessed by this church, they even gave us a sprinkle to work under so we wouldn’t get hot. They have given us way too many desserts, hugged us many times and prayed over us more than I can count. They have given me the sweetest lady named Sue to look up to that gave me a little taste of my own grandma and made me miss her oh so much but so thankful to have her. Sue is in charge of the gardens and has told us all about her family. She is such a women of faith and I have loved each second of getting to know her. Manna has been amazing to us and I am so thankful we are exactly where we are supposed to be even if it wasn’t where I was technically suppose to be. I serve a God not of technicality but of purpose. We did not go to Swaziland this month we stayed in South Africa. We will be headed to Swaziland on the 29th of November until the 19th of December. We will no longer be going to Mozambique due to safety. We are excited about this change and know God has something big up his sleeve.
