Hey everyone!
Some of you might have already figured this out, but I am officially a World Race Alumni and home. 🙂
The race officially ended on July 31st and I arrived home on August 4th after spending a few days in the New York area.
Now, you might be wondering what happened the last two months and maybe even what happened during the whole race, 11 months is a lot to remember, but no worries! I am here to fill you in on both!
My final two blogs (thank goodness) will be about my final two months and then just a short recap of the entire trip and maybe a bit about where I am ending things personally.
So the last two months we were in Romania and Albania, I’ll begin with Romania.
Romania was an all-squad month, which means that all 36 of us on V Squad were working in the same city with the same ministry. As I mentioned in my last blog the town we were working in was called Draganesti, which is in the south of Romania, and we were working with a small church there with a ministry called RESO. RESO stands for something in Romania that I, unfortunately, could never remember… Sorry.
Although the entire squad was working there we were still divided by our teams working with different missionaries in the church. My team was working with three main ministries: Kids, evangelizing, and maintenance around the church and at the house we were staying at.
Everyday was a different ministry, within those three areas. I personally love to have variety in the things I do, so this month was awesome in that respect. One of the things that stood out to me most about the people we were working with was how much they relied on and truly trusted the Lord through prayer. It was very inspiring for me to see and learn from. Being two months from home, I felt it was a great example to take home with me and put into practice in my everyday life.
This brings us to Albania. My team was assigned Unsung Heroes, which some of you might remember from my month 5 in Thailand. The vision for UH (Unsung Heroes) is in an effort to alleviate the constant pressure of having teams and to avoid a system of dependency from contacts in country, AIM sends out one team a month in search of new contacts and ministries the world race could partner with in the future.
We spend most of the month in Tirana (the capital), but also traveled to Sarade, and worked at a youth camp in Pogradec for a few days as well.
Although UH months are drastically different from months when you have a set contact and ministry it is awesome to meet and know a wider variety of the Christian community around the world, to learn what celebrations and struggles are part of their daily lives, and hope and faith that they continually operate out of.
In my final four months of the race, I learned more about what it really means to be a Christian and how the church should operate than the first 7 months combined. During my time in Europe God allowed me to meet people who truly inspired me to go further in my walk with Christ and who I am as a Christian through simply living the lives God had called them to in faith, authority, boldness, and strength.
I am so grateful for all the relationships I was able to build during my time on the race and I pray that someday I will be an equal with the men and women I met during my 11 months abroad.
