These past three months in Central America have been so so sweet. God has been showing me more & more of His love for me. He has demonstrated to me over & over that He loves me so much, that He cares for me personally, and He knows me so fully and deeply.
God continues to bless me with the desires of my heart, even desires that I didn’t know I had. He’s been spoiling me with little blessings that I hadn’t even considered possible.
Psalm 37:4 NIV “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
Here are some examples:
This past year I’ve been looking for more opportunities to play basketball because I miss playing the game. And while I didn’t find many opportunities before the Race, God blessed me with basketball in Nicaragua. My squad (which actually has a lot of basketball players on it!) was able to play in a basketball tournament against the locals every Friday night. Also, for a week we held a basketball clinic for the locals where we taught them fundamentals.
In high school I taught swim lessons to kids, and this past year in college I was looking for more opportunities to swim recreationally. In Nicaragua, God also blessed me with an afternoon to teach swim lessons to the local kids.
Growing up, I surfed a little bit (not very well or very much) but I haven’t surfed at all in many years. However, on a free day God blessed our trip to the beach and led us to a beautiful hidden local beach where we relaxed and surfed in perfect waves all day.
Before the Race started I was sad that I might not be able to workout in a fitness center, or eat a fresh salad & veggies for a year. But in Costa Rica, though there wasn’t a fitness center, there were a few makeshift barbells and dumbbells that we could use to workout. Also in Costa Rica and Panama our hosts prepared salads and veggies many nights.
If anyone has lived with me, they can often find me sitting (or laying) on our couch and they know I love taking naps on the couch. In Costa Rica, we were blessed with a midday nap time between morning and afternoon manual labor. In Panama God have us a home to live in with a living room, and -undoubtedly- a couch.
I also love to eat snack foods throughout the day between meals, so in Costa Rica God blessed us with hosts who gave us an afternoon snack & coffee time before we returned to work. Plus, in Panama our host family randomly spoiled us with surprise snacks during the work day too.
But the ultimate desire of my heart that God fulfilled in these past three months was when he answered my prayer to meet a coffee farmer. And not only did he answer it but he fulfilled it even better than I could have asked for or imagined. In Panama, my team and I were able to work on a coffee farm and live in the home of the family who owned the farm. It was a super sweet time where I was reminded daily that God knows my heart’s desires and He can make my dreams come true.
