Dear friends and family,
In Cambodia, I was blessed with the incredible news that I am now FULLY FUNDED for the World Race. Your generous support raised over $14,000 for me to be able to come on the field and serve the LORD. Thank you so much!
You've been abundantly generous with your support, so what I'm about to ask is going to sound strange. I'm writing to ask another favor of you:
Please stop donating to my support account.
I know that there are many of you who have committed to a full year of support, and I would ask you to continue to send it, just not to me. There are several members of my squad–dear, wonderful brothers and sisters of mine–who desperately need your support. Without funding, they will be sent home from Race in two weeks. At the bottom of this email, I'm listing the names and links to websites of B Squad Racers who still need support.
PLEASE prayerfully consider switching your support of me to one of my squad mates. They have fought so hard to be here. God has given them an opportunity to be a blessing to the nations. He's blessed my life by their presence.
This life is all about intersections. This is one of them. Their lives have intersected with mine, just as yours have. You have continued to bless me throughout this Race, but now it's time for a different kind of blessing. By choosing to support these Racers, you are blessing me. Your life can intersect with another Racer's. Here are a few things my squad has seen.
Brandon Boyd has seen multiple people healed of physical ailments. He also represented the squad at the Catalyst Convention in Atlanta just prior to Launch. If you check the World Race homepage, you'll see his face grinning back at you.
Taralah Neff and Courtney Burks spent a week prayer-walking through Laos, a country that is not only considered "closed" but is extremely hostile to the gospel. They walked into a village that had never seen a white person before and never spent more than three nights living in the same place.
UPDATE: FULLY FUNDED!! Andrew Ingrassia has faithfully served as the squad's logistics coordinator, which basically means that he figures out how to move a squad of 50 from country-to-country. We couldn't do this without him!
Vivian Zavala spent her month in Thailand building relationships with break dancers and skate boarders. At the end of the month, her team performed a dancing routine in front of thousands of people at the national competition.
UPDATE: FULLY FUNDED!! Chrissy Robertson–my teammate on Kaleo–spent a month living in one room with thirteen other Racers. They had one fan, one mosquito net and no running water. They did ministry in places called "Flood Village" and "Rock Village", so named for the overwhelming floods of one, and the rock quarry in the other.
Rachel Anderson (also of Kaleo) is probably the best person with kids that I know. She has this ability to walk into a school alone and leave with no less than three little kids hanging from her at odd angles. Maybe it's the red hair… but more likely, it's her genuine joy and availability for fun that makes her so enticing to them.
Mickey Wingrove (another Kaleo member) gives everything he has to the project at hand. In Nicaragua, the LORD laid it on his heart to pour into the kids we lived with, even the older girls. At every meal, every opportunity for free time, he went looking for them. I can't tell you the number of soccer or basketball games he must have played, or how many times he would watch movies with them, even if they were either in Spanish or about a Barbie Princess.
Jeremy and Kat Cerebaugh and Paul and Katrina Annunziello, our married couples, had to raise DOUBLE the support of us single folks. They faithfully serve their teammates and each other, and have given me a glimpse of what a Christ-centered marriage looks like.
Nikki Sienkiewicz and I taught English at Spein Neak in Cambodia together. The number of times we almost died on our bicycles from speeding TukTuks on the way to class is unreal.
Erica Floyd (my teammate on Talitha Koum) was on bed rest for a month after a freak accident in Bangkok. In Vietnam, she's relentlessly pursued relationships with students. She and Caitlyn Rogers (also of T.K.) have served on the worship team t the International Church. They both pour themselves out to love the students we've met.
Leanna Apland (also of T.K.) lived at a women's home in Cambodia, where she ministered to women who once worked in the sex industry.
Ben Coppock has this joy that stuns me. In Honduras, our squad all lived together. In the midst of the crazy, there was Ben with his guitar, always trying out some new chord. He fills the place with so much light.
PLEASE prayerfully consider transferring your support to one of these Racers. They all need be FULLY FUNDED with pledges in order to stay on the field. The need ranges from $500 to almost $4000 and it all has to be at least PLEDGED by APRIL 7th!
You can email me at [email protected] for more information. Please let me know if you plan on transferring your support and to which Racer, so that I can let them know how God is providing! Feel free to leave a comment on this blog, or contact me via email.
Thank you again for the enormous blessing you've been in my life. I can't thank you enough. Thank you for giving abundantly and cheerfully. I'm so blessed by you. Blessing my squadmates is a continuation of that.
Love and Blessings,
Heather
"6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls." – 1 Peter 1:6-8
