D: I definitely missed my family the most including my in-laws with my friends being a close second. Throughout the year, relationships have become vastly more important to me than anything material. I cannot wait to spend time with the people I love back home, not doing anything in particular, just spending time with each other and enjoying each others’ company. If I had to pick outside of my family, the thing I missed the most was a recliner, or anything that was designed to function with a 6’4″ 200 lbs. man in mind!
ly, too, of course! Coming from a close family on both Dustin and my’s side, being away from our families was truly the thing we missed the most. 11 days and we will see all of your beautiful faces!! Woo-hoo! Aside from friends and family, as vain as it may sound, I miss straightening my hair and dressing up every once in a while!
7. What will you miss most about the race? What are you glad is over? 
D: Again, my answer would be relationships. I’m absolutely going to miss the time with my team and squadmates, getting to do life with them, learn from them, laugh with them, and make memories with them. I am also really going to miss getting to form new relationships each month with amazing believers and non-believers around the world. One of my favorite parts of ministry each month was getting to do anything involved loving on, serving and getting to know. Hopefully I can bring that lifestyle back to the States. I’m not sure it’s a good thing, because I learned so much about myself through it, but I will be glad to have some semblance of control over my life and not always be in a state of confusion. We have spent the majority of our race with no concept of time or where we were headed or what we were going to do there which led to awesome opportunities for the Spirit to lead us, but was also exhausting at times. Traci and I are hoping to find a balance between being efficient but Spirit led at the same time.
T: Like Dustin, I will miss the people. We have made some incredible, life-long friendships this year and it will be hard to transition into life without them. God has truly blessed us with amazing people on this trip. The one thing I will be glad to be done with is living out of a backpack. My pack tends to explode once I open it at the beginning of the month and there is never a rhyme or reason to the mess that comes after that, so to be able to put clothes in drawers and closets will be a nice change!
8. How has this 11 month experience changed you the most?
D: The one word answer is ‘dependence’. From the very beginning, God has made that my theme, my motto, my challenge, and my deepest need this year. I have come to see more and more clearly our need for God in every aspect of our lives. Before the Race, I spent my entire life trying to take care of everything on my own, taking credit for it and only coming to God when I faced a seemingly impossible problem. On the Race, I have learned so much more about what it truly means to be dependent on God and having a personal relationship with Him. Not only depending on Him for huge things like our future, but also in the simplest of things like taking each breath and even in that giving Him all the glory. I truly desire to live a life fully surrendered and dependent on God in every area of my life, while still walking in the empowerment and the calling that He has for me. We need Him vastly more than I know and more than you can ever imagine, and He desperately wants to be there for us.
T: My identity in Christ has changed the most this year. Never in my life have I had to ask so many questions, heard so many different theories, and seen so much diversity in church before this year. God has been faithful through it all and I have come away more solid in what I believe about who God is and what my relationship with Him should look like. It has been an amazing, challenging, frustrating, incredible journey!
9. What was the best and worst food you have had on the Race?
T: My favorite food was Ate Marina’s fluffy pancakes for breakfast in the Philippines. Everyone looked forward to a large spread of pancakes, toast, American cereal, jam, mangoes, coffee, and tea for breakfast once or twice a week during that month. Amazing!! The worst food I encountered on the Race was also in the Philippines at a wedding we were invited to. We were served many different dishes and as people looked on, I was forced to eat what looked like beans to me and instead found out it was pig’s blood and intestines. Why did no one tell me before I put it in my mouth? I’m not sure!
10. What was your most valued single experience?
T: What ended up being our last day of ministry on the Race due to Dustin’s shoulder injury, Dustin and I had the unbelievable privilege of baptizing an elderly man in India that Dustin had prayed with the night before to receive Christ. It had been a goal of mine from the first day on the Race to baptize someone, and God chose our last day of ministry to make that a reality. It was amazing. Outside of ministry, my favorite experience was taking a boat ride in Thailand touring some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It was incredible to see God’s creation and beauty in such magnificence.
11. What is the most amazing thing you have learned about your relationship with God through this experience?
D: God loves me. I have heard that since I was in the nursery 26 years ago, but it is has just started to sink in this year. I have truly begun to see that He actually loves me, Dustin, passionately, powerfully, and intimately. Not just in a trite and cliche way or as a general truth, but genuinely and specifically. Even though it’s one of the simplest truths, meditating and dwelling on it has completely changed how I view my relationship with God.
T: God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I have always known this, but after a year of asking questions and taking a look at what I truly believe, having the knowledge that in the midst of my confusion and struggle that God hasn’t changed is an extreme comfort. My God is always the same, He’s just changing me and teaching me new and wonderful things about Him. He is still and always will be my Rock and Salvation!
So what’s next for the Suttles?
