for those of you that are not currently up to date with all the super cool World Race lingo: PVT stands for parent vision trip, which is where Adventures in Missions organizes a week for parents to come visit their racer while still doing ministry, basically just to see what the heck their kid has been doing for the past 6 months. sooo I got to spend five days with my parents!!! After not seeing them for 7 months (+ not really being able to talk to them for the past three months because Africa, ya know). I got to do ministry with them + learn with them + let them see all the crazy weird, but seemingly normal things, I am now accustomed to here on the race. it’s hard to put into words, but I was weirdly nervous to have my parents here, on the field with me. i wasn’t nervous to actually see them, but I was nervous for them to see me. I have changed a lot on the race. I find myself being comfortable with things that, prior to the race, I thought were extremely weird and, quite frankly, “too religious” for me. I was nervous that my parents would think that I was weird or “too religious”. I was scared that the things that my squad did on a regular basis would make them uncomfortable, + then they would associate those uncomfortable things with me. If you see where im goin. Which was super weird. Because those of you that know me know that I am incredibly fond of my parents + the relationship I have with them. I have never really been afraid to say something or show something to my parents because I have always known that no matter what it was they would respond with nothing but love + support. but this was different. this was a subject that we had never really talked about; this was a side of myself that they had never really seen. i know that my parents love Jesus, because I had seen it, heck seeing it from them is how I learned to do it myself. but the kind of love that I have for Jesus now is not that same kind of love that I learned from them, in fact it’s the kind of love that I was afraid of. The kind of love that takes over your entire life. The kind of love that is ACTUALLY crazy. It’s like an obsession. It makes you say things + do things. It takes over every part of you, until it’s kind of all you are. And that’s what happened. That love took over all that I was, + became everything that i am. + that person is vastly different than the person I was before coming on the race. not because of the race itself, or anything that i did, but because I have simply been spending more time with Jesus. Understanding who He is and who I am in such a deeper way than I ever had before. + that changed me. a lot. i became the person that a year before, I would have thought was borderline psychotic to be totally honest. just flat out, weird. + I thought my parents would see me that same way, the way I would have seen myself before the race.
so I was already nervous for my parents to come, scared of making them uncomfortable with all of our World Race things, and then, we had a healing night. so “healing”, just the concept in general, was kind of scary + uncomfortable + unsettling for me. I knew that God is and always will be sovereign, and that He is the ultimate Healer, because it says so in the Bible. But the act of physically putting your hands on someone and declaring that they are healed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and believing that we, as Christians, have the power to declare that, because of the living and active Holy Spirit within us, kind of freaked me out. I thought it was weird. (I thought it was kind of a waste of time, because if the Lord wanted that person to be healed, then He would’ve just done it, buuut that’s an entirely different topic, that I am still learning about and working through). it took me 6 months of practicing it to be comfortable and at least another 2 to actually BELIEVE in it, to ENJOY it. In fact, it wasn’t until this very night that my attitude toward healing in general COMPLETELY changed. whenever my squad usually has these healing nights, i’m in the back. I’m just kind of going through the motions and praying the prayer i’m supposed to, checking my watch until time is up and I can bail. But that night, when the worship music started playing, I was PUMPED. Literally giddy with excitement. Genuinely happy to be there, singing and dancing (poorly, by the way) to the music while waiting to pray over someone, and then asking for crazy big miraculous things that I fully believed would happen. The whole night started out with the parents + racers kind of naturally separating, since our squad has been doing it for months now and it has just become natural to us, with some of the parents still asking themselves what kind of cult they let their kids join. it started out with only my squad participating, but as the night continued, parents started coming into that little circle and joining in prayer. + then the parents actually started ASKING for prayer. Which doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but it really is. asking for prayer from 100 strangers, admitting something you struggle with, is really really difficult. It got real emotional real fast; a bunch of kids were crying with their parents after praying over them. Meanwhile I was still just so pumped to be a part of the whole thing that I was just thinking come on guys this is a really cool thing that is happening right now, why the heck are you crying this is a happy time, please stop, you know that sort of thing. And then, my dad finds me in the middle of the big circle we are in, and tells me he wants emotional, spiritual, and physical healing.
*brief intermission*
for those of you that don’t know him personally, my dad is the most selfless person I have ever met. he is constantly putting everyone before himself, worrying about his own needs last, if at all. he is a biiiiig generosity guy. he would gladly give anything and everything he has away if it means he gets to give someone the help that they need. but he is significantly less inclined to ASK for that help he so freely gives to others. He takes pride in his independence and capability to provide for himself and his family. much like myself, he is also not a huge fan of speaking in front of people, or in any large group setting, really. He doesn’t need or want the attention. So for my dad to stand up in front of 100 people, people he doesn’t know, and not only ASK them for help, but to ask them to PRAY for him…I could have crumbled under the amount of joy I felt in that moment.
*end intermission*
so my dad, who often doubts himself + his relationship with the Father, who thinks it’s uncomfortable to raise his hands in worship, who, like me, does not yet fully understand prayer, who hates being the center of attention, who finds it difficult to receive help, puts his pride and his insecurities aside, and ASKS. my squad and some of the parents gathered around my dad and prayed over him, all at once. And then when everyone was finished, I said a closing prayer. I had never actually prayed out loud in my squad before. as previously mentioned, large group settings are just not where I thrive, so I typically don’t say a lot when my whole squad is involved, and when I do it is usually nervous + rushed through. But when I was praying for my dad I had a crazy peace come over me. afterwards, my dad, who I have seen cry twice in my entire life, was in tears. He told me that I had said exactly what it was that he wanted + needed to hear. And if my life depended on it, I could not tell you a single word I said in that prayer. i think it was the first time that I have ever been fully aware of the Holy Spirit within me. That entire night I could literally FEEL His presence. When the healing night was finished, I met with my parens to talk to them about everything that had happened that night. My dad told me that when he went into that circle to ask for prayer, he did not want to. Like at all. but he felt his heart was beating a million times a minute. He said he thought my mom was physically pushing him, making him go. She wasn’t. THE HOLY SPIRIT. he was physically led into that circle, into prayer, and into boldness by the Holy Spirit. THAT IS SO STINKING COOL. He orchestrated this entire divine experience. The race itself. My parents coming to see me. the healing night. All of it. He did all of it.
i got to have the most amazing, in-depth, fruitful conversation about the Lord + what it means to live out of the truth that you are a beloved child of the Creator of the universe with my parents. I got to share what I have learned, the wisdom the Lord has given me with them. I got to show them this person in my life who I am so so in love with. + I get to hope and pray for them as I watch them fall deeper in love with Him too. I got to pray for growth and more divine experiences for my parents. And I fully believe that it will happen + I will get to see it. because my Father promised me so.
