HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!! 
I know that today is technically already four days into the new year, but I have decided to begin my new year today.
Today I am writing you from Mokhotlong, Lesotho.
After many long days of travel, my feet are officially on African soil!
For those reading this who have never heard of Lesotho (I totally hadn’t either before the race), it is a small country completely landlocked by South Africa.
Here →
I will give you a brief recap of what it has looked like getting here.
We left Pacasmayo, Peru on the night of December 27-28th.
We spent the night on a 12 hour bus ride to Lima, Peru.
The following day (December 29th) we reunited with our team and prepared to fly out.
On December 30th at 7 am, we got to the Lima airport and boarded our first flight.
After 12 hours of flying, we landed at our first layover location in Madrid.
We had a 16 hour layover before boarding our next flight to Dubai.
After an 8 hour flight we arrived in Dubai, had another 2 hour layover, and then boarded our third flight to Johannesburg, South Africa.
After 8 more hours in the air, we landed in Johannesburg on January 1st, and then took a 1-2ish hour bus ride to Pretoria, South Africa, where we were able to spend the night with a host.
The next morning (January 2) at 6am, we got back on the bus and began the 10 hour bus ride, including many winding roads and a border crossing, that eventually got us to our new home in Mokhotlong, Lesotho.
In short:
- Pacasmayo → Lima
- Lima → Madrid
- Madrid → Dubai
- Dubai → Johannesburg
- Johannesburg → Pretoria
- Pretoria → Mokhotlong
So due to having spent actual New Years in the air somewhere between Madrid and Dubai and needing a day to recover from changing time zones 4 times, I am choosing to start 2020 today!
I am beyond excited to see everything that the Lord desires to teach me this year. And I feel incredibly blessed that this is where I am getting to begin. Mokhotlong is beautiful, and beautifully simple. Where we live has no wifi, no running water, no fans, and no distractions from the pure presence of God.
In the words of Brother Lawrence “For what I sought after was simply how to become wholly God’s. So I resolved to give all for ALL. Then I gave myself wholly to God; I renounced everything that was not His. I did this to deal with my sins, and because of my love for Him. I began to live as if there was nothing, absolutely nothing but Him.”
That my friends, is my sole desire this year.
It is my hope to share much more with all of you and I will most definitely post an update about this by the end of the month. I also hope to share many more pictures with all of you than I have in the past. However, I am posting this blog from a small room behind a market where I pay for minutes of wifi and, as you can probably imagine, the connection quality isn’t exactly the best. So pictures (which take approximately 2 years each to upload) may have to wait until next month.
I hope every single one of you has had an incredible holiday season and feel ready to step into all God is calling you into this new year!
If you have any specific goals, dreams, callings, or needs that you want to share, I would love to hear from you! I can’t promise that I will be able to get back to you anytime soon, but I will as soon as I can!
I also love, and thoroughly appreciate everyone’s comments and encouragements on previous blogs! They mean so much to me!
All my love,
Em
