Hey everybody!
Sorry for not putting a blog up last week! Wifi has been pretty inconsistent and my computer was dead the last time I had a chance to post one.
It has been exactly one month since I hopped on the Megabus to Washington DC to start my first of many travel days on the World Race. It’s a really weird feeling knowing that I’m already one month done with the race. I had heard “the days are long and the weeks are short” many times from racers before I left, but I never knew how real it would actually be.
I’m currently sitting at a backpacker’s inn called Crazy Dave’s in Nelspruit, South Africa. I got here yesterday and we will be here for the next couple of days for our month one debrief. We have three debriefs throughout the year; after months one, five, and nine. Debrief is a time to reflect on our first month of ministry with our team and squad. It’s been awesome so far and I look forward to seeing how God can use it to prepare us for these next couple months in Swaziland.
My music fast is officially over, and I’m not going to lie, it was very difficult. I didn’t realize how often I would go to music instead of either God or fellow believers when I felt upset or angry. It was really good having to force myself to really talk and pray through difficult things instead of just tuning the world out by listening to music. I am now much more aware of when I need to talk about problems rather than just suppress them.
I still have another month left in my breakfast fast, and I’m starting to think that I might just go ahead and keep it going for the rest of the race. It has been super fruitful so far because I’ve been able to get time alone outside in the Word while everyone else is inside eating breakfast. Also, whenever I get hungry I am reminded of what I read that morning. It helps keeps the Word on my mind much more frequently than it normally would be.
Ministry the past couple weeks was great. The men spent a few days painting a training center on the base that will be used for training members of the community in different trades. It didn’t always feel like we were making a huge difference because we couldn’t see the fruit of our work outside of the visible change of the color of the building, but I know that it needed to be done and will end up benefitting people in ways that we can’t yet see.
After we finished painting, we had the opportunity to go to care points with some of the girls teams for a few days. It was awesome being with the kids and just loving them and playing games with them. The kids in Swaziland have so much joy and it’s incredible seeing how much life they bring wherever they go. I think that we will be spending more time going to care points over the next two months and all of the guys are excited to build relationships with the kids.
Thanks for reading!
