February FLEW by!
It’s been over a month since my last blog, I apologize; it was a jam packed month!
This month, my team, the Cartographers have been traveling around A LOT!
We ended our time in Turkey in Istanbul which is probably now my FAVORITE city ever. We took a bus from Istanbul to Batumi, Georgia.
We were in Batumi (on the Black Sea) for one week, then traveled up to Kutaisi, Georgia for a week, then traveled by train to Tbilisi (the capital of Georgia) for a week of Debrief and a week of PARENT VISION TRIP! What a whirlwind!
This past month was incredible…and I have many more updates on how the Lord is speaking and how He is moving through our squad. It has been A LOT. To kick off these updates, I want to share a short story with you all!
Don’t Be Ashamed, Hannah!
My team was finally all seated on the bus that would get us from Istanbul to Batumi, Georgia. We were just VERY excited to have found the right bus and that all of our backpacks made it onto the bus too! Many other passengers were not as fortunate.
I was preparing for a 20 something hour bus ride to Georgia and excited to get some rest after a long day in Istanbul!
The man sitting behind me…in his mid-twenties…began to strike up conversation before the bus even left. He was a Georgian from Tbilisi and was eager to share travel tips and to get to know me.
He became very interested in me and soon my friends after. He was fishing about my relationship status and began joking a lot about how we were going to get married…and his friends had fun with it. I’m pretty sure he even sent a picture of me to his mother…it got “serious” lol.
He became very personal…He began to talk about how he has many girlfriends and whether they are together for a couple months or a couple hours… he has sex with all of them.
I told him, “Yeah, no I don’t do that.”
He kept talking about how it is not a big deal. “Everyone has sex with everyone; it’s not bad”.
He even asked if my team (3 guys and 3 girls) were really just friends or “sex friends”. I was like no…we are all just friends. We don’t do that kind of thing.
He began asking a lot of questions. I told him I had someone back home in the States, and that we started dating 5 years ago.
He assumed that because of being in a long term relationship…that I’ve had sex…and I told him the truth– that no, I have never.
He was SHOCKED to say the least.
So, yes! I blew his mind by telling him that I am 24 years old and a virgin.
Yes, and I have even been with the same man for many years, and I still haven’t had sex.
He was like WHY? He said, I thought people in America were open to that kind of thing? He said, in Georgia, people do what they want.
I told him the truth; I am trying to honor the Lord. I am trying to obey God the best that I can and that is something that He asks of us.
I am a follower of Jesus and am waiting til marriage.
The idea was foreign to him.
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The life that the Lord has called us to is COUNTERCULTURAL.
We are not supposed to look like the world.
I know it is hard sometimes in the day and age we are in. But obeying God is not something to be ashamed of.
Purity is such a hot topic and has been for years!
In movies and in the media, virginity is often something that people joke about. If someone is still a virgin, they are often looked at like a “freak” or like there is something wrong with them.
But to follow Jesus is COUNTERCULTURAL.
My team and I are currently doing a study on trusting God and studying the Old Testament kings.
In the study it talks about there being “Protection in Restriction”.
The Lord restricts us from things to protect us…not because He is trying to keep good things from us.
Quite the opposite. God keeps us from things like sex before marriage to PROTECT us:
To protect our bodies, our hearts, our emotions, and our future marriages.
He wants to keep us from contracting diseases, from becoming pregnant out of wedlock, from becoming too emotionally tied to someone that is NOT yet our partner in the context of marriage, and so much more.
He restricts us because He loves us so much, and He cares about us, about our hearts, & about our future marriages.
God is SUCH a good Father. He is restricting us to protect us.
Wow, I am so thankful for that.
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So yes, I am trying to radically follow God with my whole life and in the decisions I make.
I’ve even been wearing a purity ring since I was 12 years old (literally half of my life now–CRAZY).
And yet, I still get anxious when people ask me what the ring is for…
WHY IS THAT?
Why does this world make us feel foolish for obeying God?
My Lord comes before ANY MAN.
Yes, I have dated.
I have even been engaged…
but my Lord still comes before any man.
The Lord is so faithful and has protected me so much.
He continues to bless my obedience, and I am so grateful.
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May our lives be a living testimony of the hope we have in Jesus!
And let us not be ashamed when we don’t look like the world.
Cause we were never supposed to…
Photo Credit: Kati Simpson
Check out her blog here: https://katisimpson.theworldrace.org/
