February 4th, 2011
We’ve technically declared Fridays to be our days off. Honestly, there have been some months, like month 3 in Ireland, when we needed a day off. But most months, like this one, I don’t find a day off to really be necessary. If anything, it just means that we have a collective understanding that on that day we can freely choose out of whatever we want to. But even this being our day “off,” it didn’t really turn out like that.
We still ended up going down to the beach. In the morning we went for internet. It’s funny how that works, because even when we go for internet, if we’re posting blogs or keeping in touch with people back home, that’s still ministry. It’s a ministry to include our supporters in ministry because after all, it’s their ministry too, almost more than it is ours. (But everything is God’s ministry.) Not only that, but you’d be surprised how many people are touched by our blogs. Random people contact us telling us that they’ve been encouraged and sometimes find Jesus through our blogs.
For example, some random guy somewhere in the world had a friend named Daniel Durick who had died. We have a Daniel Durick, same spelling, on our squad, and when this person googled his deceased friend’s name guess whose world race blog showed up! The dude read it and sent him an email saying how Daniel’s blog was helping him grieve and find God again. I believe Daniel wrote a blog about it with the exact email included; look it up at danieldurick.theworldrace.org.
After internet we returned for lunch, ate, and then went back out to the beach because Bethsaida and Leah had scheduled a lunch at 2pm with Paris, the prostitute whom they talked with yesterday. So we went a little early and Joshua Maisner and Jake Van Norman and I goofed off in the waves, swam around the end of the beach into a little cove, cut my foot up on some coral, met a few people… We went back around 2pm and there was “Mr. California,” as we call him, the guy that Paris was with yesterday, talking with our group, but no Paris. We had met Mr. California yesterday as well, so they had asked him about his “friend” he was with yesterday. He said that last night she told him that some missionaries had come and talked to her and she had decided that she couldn’t do what she was doing anymore, she had to go take care of her family. Mr. Cali was understanding enough and said something like, “Well, we all get to choose what’s right and what’s wrong for us, so if that’s wrong for you then that’s ok.” And he let her go.
Let me put it a different way: A prostitute had a Jesus encounter with two of our girls yesterday and in less than 12 hours had decided to leave the sex industry. AMEN.
I’m sure Bethsaida Portalatin and Leah Mohrig will blog about it in more detail later. Check out bethsaidaportalatin.theworldrace.org and leahmohrig.theworldrace.org.
Anyways, praise God that we got that closure. It doesn’t really happen that we get to see an end result of the people we witness to. Mr. California could have just as easily not shown up and we would have never known what happened to Paris. But God was gracious to let us see the fruit he bore in her, and then use the very man that was buying her to tell us about it!
I had cut up the top of my foot on some coral or something so I sat with Jake and Joshua at a table at a beachside restaurant while some antiseptic was working on it until it stopped bleeding. Somehow we ended up talking about waxing chesthair. I dunno. Josh and Jake went back for dinner and Bethsaida, Sarah, Leah, and Stacey wanted to stay and see what the nightlife was like after 7pm when all their friends who work during the day get off work. They needed a guy to stay with them to make sure no one tried anything with them since it was going to be after dark craziness, and I gladly volunteered. I mean, not only do I get to be watchdog, but I also get to hang out with some of my awesome sisters! (Except I’m usually too busy being alert to hang out, and they like to have their girl time anyways.) I love helping to keep my sisters safe. “God, do you want me to go into protective services?” I don’t have time to get distracted now so I decide to drop the matter.
We hung out at the beach until the party started, and suddenly there were lasers and loud sex music and belligerent men at the bars and people wearing light up devil horns and people blowing fire… so we decided to come back another night when more of us would go. Good call.
By the way, did I mention that we have a pet monkey? His name is Muy Muy, which translates into English as Monkey.
On the business side of things… I’m technically not fully funded, I’m remaining on the race by promise to pay any remaining balance by the end of the final month. Right now that balance is about $4,000. Please help me pay it down by donating! Also, for security reasons I’ll be out of contact for the month of March. No news is good news.
