Since I first got accepted to the world race back in March, I knew that this journey would involve asking people for money…aka: fundraising (there is no eloquent way to ask for money by the way) …and it would involve prayer, getting shots, dealing with passports and potentially embassy’s as well as packing and figuring out everything I was going to take. I knew there was going to be a lot involved in getting ready to leave the country I just don’t think I ever realized quite how much.
Financially
- In the last 10 months or so I have:
- Sold 15 T-Shirts
- Had a Vespers Fundraiser
- Had people Collecting Pop Cans for me as well as saving change
- And Sent out about 100 Support letters
So What does this mean: It means that I have currently raised $10,635 of my $16,562 so far. That means I am 64.21% of being totally funded.
This has happened because of:
- 1 Anonymous donor
- 2 Church Donations
- And 22 supporters so far.
What this means:
I still need $5,927 to be fully funded by the end of April.
My next deadline is February 29th, at which time I will need to have $13,000 in my AIM account… ($2,347 more than what I currently have).
Financially things have gone better than I could have ever expected….if You would like to donate through my Blog click the support me button to do so, this is a tax-deductible donation….
If you would like to donate directly to me, for any emergencies, toiletries, free days’, etc…while out on the field please feel free to go to paypal and donate there through my email: [email protected] or to my GoFundMe account at https://www.gofundme.com/deedeepeters and donate there. Donations made to my paypal or gofundme are not tax deductible.
Passport/Visa
Another thing I had to do besides finances for this trip was that I had to renew my passport back in May. It got here about 8 weeks later right before my birthday in July. I was excited to have it back but even more excited to just have my passport stuff out of the way, but then at Training Camp (T.C.) in October our squad was told that we’d have to send our Passports to the Embassy of Mozambique in D.C. at the beginning of December in order to apply for visas. I was not at all thrilled at the prospect of letting my passport out of my possession especially that close to launch. However, I filled out my paperwork, sent it all in and followed the tracking to where it told me it arrived in D.C. on December 4th. I didn’t think about it much the first few days, but then people started getting their passports and visa back and I began to wonder where mine was…by Christmas eve almost everyone else on my squad had their passports and visas back and here I was without one…
I started to doubt whether or not I was supposed to be going on the trip or not; and then I would question whether or not they approved my visa, and if they had denied it then why wouldn’t they have told me already. The more I thought about it the more frustrated I’d get…I’d wonder why God had allowed me to get the funding to be able to go if he wasn’t gonna provide my passport and visa; why would he allow supporters to let down if I couldn’t go…. I was so upset at one point I even got into a yelling match with him over it in the car the other day….
Then came the time for me to call the Embassy on Monday the 4th, first day they were open after the holidays. I got through to them to find out why I didn’t have it back, to find out that they had it ready to send but that I’d forgotten to pay the shipping on my self-addressed envelope. Long story short I got my stuff figured out, got them a shipping label and my passport/visa arrived this morning (1/5) just 2 days before I leave for Atlanta, GA for launch. When getting it this morning, I couldn’t have been more excited. I was reminded again just how much God loves me and How much he provides for me. Our whole squad experienced 11th hour miracles (as we called them). We had 3 members of our squad who weren’t funded to the point of being able to leave but now they are….2 out of the three of us without passports have solved that problem, just waiting back to here on the last…we Will all be together for the first time since TC in just 3 short days and I think it’s amazing that God made that possible.
“..What is impossible with man is possible with God.” (Luke 18:27 ESV)
Packing/Moving
Along with finances, passports/visas, etc…there has been the added fun of packing to move, finishing up the last few shifts of my job at Taco time, moving out of my apartment, and of course packing for the trip.
Of all this quitting my Job was probably the easiest to do. I knew the time was coming where I was going to have to move on anyways, how long did I really want to work Fast Food. But those last few weeks were hectic with scheduling, especially through the holidays and trying to decide do I quit before Christmas or be nice (which is what I chose) and waiting until after so those who wanted it off could have it off. Working my last shift on 12/26 come almost as a relief. It was one less thing I had to stress about and one more thing I could check off my to-do list, but at the time I felt bummed because I had made friends and built relationships not only with my customers but also with some of our regular customers.
Then came the moving out, and packing for the trip. I was getting ready to move into my adopted family’s place and knew that whatever I planned on taking with me on the trip had to be taken over there, everything else in my apartment was going to my mom’s over 5 hours away. Over the course of the last few months I had taken several loads of stuff down to my mom’s and all I had left was one load…so I got everything as ready as could be, got my packs packed (another blog later on this), and got everything ready to go. Took a trip to my mom’s with a load was there for one night and came back where we loaded my mom’s car back up and she took the final load back down to her place on New Year’s eve and I moved out of my apartment that night. Moving out and packing my bags made more checks on my checklist making me just one step closer to launch this weekend.
These three things, finances, passports/visa/ moving are just three of the things that have been building up to lunch in a few days that has made this journey long…but honestly the longest part of this journey is the Goodbye.
Goodbye…. I hate those words, it’s definitely more of a see you later for me, but at the same time it is Goodbye. Yes, it’s true, I will be back in 11 months…but I expect that things will be different and I will be different. I started my first goodbye shortly before thanksgiving and have slowly started to do more and more lately. I thought saying goodbye to my youth group kids a few weeks ago would be the hardest goodbye I had, and it was hard; but my hardest goodbye so far would have to be the one I did last night, saying goodbye to my best friend Caleb was probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do yet. I saw goodbye to my adopted family Thursday morning and my Sister Shelby and Brother Calvin will take me to the airport and I know those goodbyes will be hard to but still…. saying Goodbye to Caleb was a basically a reality check in the fact that I’m really leaving in two days and I won’t be back for almost a year.
So like I said it’s been a long journey to launch, and at times I never thought I’d get there, but here I am two days away and I can’t believe it….as the Journey to Launch ends, the Journey of the Race begins. I can’t wait to see what God has instore for that Journey.
