Beloved family and friends,
Squad W got an update from our squad mentor this past Sunday morning. The executive team at Adventures in Missions has made the decision to send all Gap Year racers back home to the states.
Our email said “The reality of this quickly moving virus is that many governments and health agencies are not able to effectively asses conditions on the ground, particularly in the developing world. It is this constraint that has caused us to make the decision to begin the process of bringing all participants from World race, gap year, and semesters back to the US.”
Then the bomb dropped: “Today is our last day, we fly to LA tomorrow. Be packed and ready by 7:30am tomorrow morning.”
Oh man! OUCH!
This resulted in many tears and much confusion. Like, what the heck? We had just gotten a positive email the night before saying we are staying on the field.
So yeah.
This blog is the hardest one I’ve had to write. Hands down. I feel like my heart has been beating out of my chest ever since we got the news yesterday. And today, we have had a seven hour layover in Taipei and it’s taken me most of the time to figure out what to say. I don’t want to write this because then it’ll be real!
But I can say that as a squad, we are disappointed, but we are at peace that God knew about this all along. He is sending us back for a reason, but it’s okay if we don’t see it right away. The way I see it is that America needs a lot of hope right now and the Lord is sending people back who have been living missionally for 7 months to be his vessels. And that’s pretty cool. Leaving Thailand so soon was a heartbreak, but leaving the people who have become my family in these past months will hurt even more.
I am so very grateful for the time I got to have on the field and I would never trade it for the world. This just makes me even more grateful that I serve a God who is WHOLLY CONSTANT in a world full of chaos. And if I didn’t learn anything else on the world race, I learned that we aren’t promised and easy life, but we are promised an intimate relationship with the Creator of the universe that we can cling to no matter what happens. And that’s a breath of fresh air.
Cheers to a life abiding in the Father in all circumstances.
Cheers to W squad and all the memories we shared.
“Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. Jehovah of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” Psalm 46:10-11
Here’s some lyrics we sang at our last night of worship on the field:
“It’s out of my control, it’s out of my hands, still I choose to trust the One who created Man.”
“I know you love me, I know you have a plan, even when I can’t see, sometimes my eyes are covered by Your hands.”
Peace and blessings (one last time),
Hannah Keller
Prayer requests
Please PLEASE be praying for the world right now. Pray for peace over fear.
Pray for all the World Race squads transitioning to the states.
Pray for W squad as we spend two days in LA debriefing these last seven months!
Thank you!
