October 2016 I flew to Atlanta to launch on the World Race.
During launch I wrote a blog called I never could have known.
In the days preparing ourselves to begin this transformation journey we were told our final country would instead of Greece be Spain, and in our time there the goal would be to hike El Camino de Santiago.
In that blog I explained how this has been a dream of mine for a while, and that I KNEW that I would hike it at some point, obviously after the race… I never could have known or expected I would have the chance to pursue that dream ON the race.
I have been looking forward month by month, experience by experience. We went through southeast Asia, southern Africa and eastern Europe.
So here we are, Month 11.
I’m sitting on my bed in our hostel in Pamplona, Spain processing that our first day of walking this beautiful pilgrimage starts early tomorrow morning (like 4am to beat the heat). Even though I am still on the race, the excitement for these mere 10 days rivals the excitement for leaving on the race its self, the camino being something that has been on my heart since its introduction.
My bag is packed, my shell is hung (the sign on the Camino pilgrim) and my heart readies itself for the closing ten days of ministry on the race. I have learned so much about myself, my God, and our relationship in the last 10 months that I know God is going to literally and figuratively walk me through many things as I put one foot in front of the other.
I will walk through letting go of the race and readying myself for reentry.
I will be grieving the loss of relationships on my squad and with the people I now hold dearly all around the globe.
I will be grieving the fact that everything I knew about myself and my communities here and back home will be different as I head back.
I will be asking God what he wants me to deeply pursue in the coming years.
And I will simply walk with him.
I am certain there will be things I could never even predict. There will be connections and friendships made with people walking and searching. There will be memories.
There will be intimacy with the father.
Although I hold a lot of excitement for this time, I also hold it loosely, knowing that God has a plan for this time far better than what I could expect.
AND I GET TO TURN 23 ON THE CAMINO.
