***Heads up – there will be some important links at the end of this blog***
This was the last day on the World Race with O squad on the beach of Mombasa, Kenya. August 19,2017
So now it’s been about 10 months since I’ve been home from the race. So much has changed since I said goodbye to the people that I lived with for the 11 months on the race. I have experienced re-entry, moved, gotten a new job, and had so many new life developments. I have realised that so much has happened and I have shared absolutely none of it.
We made it to a TN game this year! My roommate, her parents, and I road tripped it up to Western NC and drove over to Knoxville to see a game in Neyland Stadium. So this is my roommate, Michelle, and I (and yes the overalls are necessary). Go Vols! October 2017
So really this story begins when I was packing up my house in Knoxville, TN, which was the first long step that lead me down the whirlwind of everything with one step of faith after the other. And let me tell GOD has been so good through all of it. As I was packing up the boxes from the house that I had called home for two years and moving out of the city that I had called home for all of my adult life, I kept praying about whether or not I would move back to my beloved city, but the LORD gave me a different than I could have ever imagined. I got this overwhelming feeling that I wasn’t just saying goodbye to this house and this wonderful city, but that I wasn’t moving back to East Tennessee after I came from the race. I had no idea where I was going the following August or where I would call home, but I pack my life into a suitcase and left.
As the time kept going, that house in Knoxville had opened up the answer of where I was going to call home stateside. I have moved in with my roommate from that house and her family in central Florida. This meant that after I came home from the race that I would continue to life out of suitcase for a few weeks and sleep on several couches. It also meant hard work and packing up my life into what would fit in my car and driving 10 hours and across 4 state lines to my new home to live with people that are now family to me.
Michelle flew up to Tennessee to make the drive to Florida with me when I moved and we got the opportunity to stop and see a teammate from the race, Katie Merideth, in Spartanburg, SC. October 1, 2017
While that might sound like the end of story, it wasn’t. Re-entry was hard for me. I had a hard time finding community like I had on race outside of the people I lived with, and I spent several months unemployed. Being unemployed did bring on the bright side that I got to go home for Christmas and a lot of time with the Lord and praying about the vision that the Lord had for my life.
Throughout my time prayer over the longterm and big picture vision the Lord kept bringing up Uganda and ministry/ missions through agriculture. I couldn’t get it out of my head, and I kept being reminded that there’s not a lot of stuff that does exactly what I’m called to. To follow that plan, I would need to more equipped. So I applied for several internships all over the world that I felt would do that for me. Then, I waited to see what the Lord was about to do through those applications.
The Cliffs of Moher, Ireland. We grouponed this entire trip and 10 out of 10 would do it agian.
February 2018.
In the meantime, I also submitted an application for a job as an educator at Seaworld. All of these applications went out either right before or while I was visiting the beautiful country of Ireland. The day I got back from visiting Ireland I got a call for an interview for Seaworld and within a week had a job offer. So since the end of March I have been working as an educator at Seaworld Orlando, and my season there is coming to a close on August 12th.
So here is the exciting part of this blog! On August 20th, I will be beginning an internship at City of Life Church in Kissimmee, FL. This is the church that I have been attending for several months since moving here and it truly feels like home. In this internship I will grow in leadership and grow in areas of ministry that I haven’t yet. This is to prepare for long term ministry for me, because the goal that I have right is to get back to Uganda and teach agriculture like I did on the race.
This is in Uganda teaching cattle handling and how to pick out a good cow for the farmers there.
July 2017
So why not just get on a plane back to Uganda? The answer to that question is, there is still much that I need to learn about what it takes to run a ministry and different aspects of ministry first. And that is what this internship is going to help out with. This internship is a support raised position and I need $2,850 to be fully funded for it. $850 is still what I need to make my first payment. If you would like to partner with me for this I have a Go Fund Me set up for donations (https://bit.ly/2uruNvQ). I do also have venmo and paypal if you would rather do that. If you would rather send a check I can let you know an address to send that to, just email me at [email protected].
This will be my last blog from this site, after this I will be posting from a different site. I will leave the link to that at the bottom of this and you can follow me there! See ya all there, and thank you for going on the adventure of the World Race with me and continually supporting me as I continue to say “yes” to the Lord.
Links mentioned in this blog:
Go Fund me:
Blog:
http://jkateclark.blogspot.com/
