A full year has passed and yet it feels as if it has only been a week. Images from the Carepoint orphans in Swaziland to Jose from Costa Rica and all the way to the girls in Phuket, Thailand flash in my memory like 30-second World Vision commercial. Each image tugs from a place in my heart where it now lives unforgotten. A year like this could easily try to chalk itself up as an anecdotal story I’ll one day tell my grandchildren, “that one year I traveled the world”, but my Spirit laughs at that thought. Quietly yet passionately it whispers, “this is only the beginning”. 
There is no way I could have wrapped up the year without being home a couple weeks first. Being back in my room at my parents’ house and surrounded by the people who’ve know me for years, my eyes are opened to a deeper appreciation of God’s heart for me. The World Race has taught me to appreciate deep relationship within community. Never before have I appreciated my family and friends more than I do at this moment. I just got home from spending a week+ in Houston and Colorado with my Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles and cousins. Man, I love them. My Grandma still stands the master of the best green chile north of Mexico (sorry Millie! I still credit you for being the only one who gives her competition for that title though!) While in Houston, I got my Aunt to let my cousin Taylor skip school and get a manicure with me. Taylor helped me pick out some cute new shoes and was my American fashion advisor for a day. It gave me the chance to get to know better this beautiful girl 
whom I’m related to! My Uncle Scott spoiled me with Hot Tamales candy and a movie night at his house, then my Aunt Renee and I went Christmas shopping the next morning while he and my cousin Josh slept in ☺. (I have the greatest picture of him sleeping on the couch, but I’d like to live so I won’t post it here!) I shared some incredible conversations with my Grandpa Clyde that I felt solidified our love and respect for one another as people from two different generations. Last night I visited my friend Stephanie and got to meet her boyfriend Eric who she started dating after I left for the trip. I couldn’t stop laughing as they took turns telling me stories to catch me up on the events I missed this year.
My Mom and Dad – probably the only two people who can tell me to clean my room, yet still feel like my best friends. My mom took a job as a flight attendant this past year and has traveled all over the States down to Cancun and Puerto Rico. She took me to get my hair done as 
an early Christmas present, got hers done too, then we raved about how hot we looked. Haha. My Dad has put up a list on the refrigerator and told me to write down any American grocery I could want that I didn’t have this year. I’m literally blown away by God’s hand in his life this year. The Holy Spirit has been at work in him and the man is filled with incredible wisdom and love. I am so encouraged by both of them!
A blog like this might contain events that seem mundane and un-exciting, but to me they are precious, eternal treasures only the Lord could give. I am blessed beyond these simple typed words can express and I give God all the glory. Thank you Lord for this year, for the World Race and for the things you have placed in my heart that can never be forfeited nor taken away. And thank you Seth Barnes, Gary Black, Andrew Shearman, Tom Davis and families, debrief teams, our international contacts and my supporters. This year has solidified in me a life-long pursuit of knowing and serving an untamable, loving Almighty God in every tongue and every nation. And to my World Race brothers and sisters – I have no doubt I will work with some of you again, in some nation, in some time. You hav
e stretched me and grown me and pushed me closer to the Lord this year. I love you and you will always remain in my heart.
Oh, and as for the next step? I am hoping to go to The Call in Kansas City over New Years with some other World Racers, then in January I am speaking at a high school age winter retreat in Montana. Please pray for me for that! The weekend’s theme is “Dying to Self”. I believe I have a lot of fresh material for that topic! Then I plan to take a photography class and specialty baking class starting in Jan/Feb in order to attain skills I can some day pass on to the orphans and little girls God gives me as my inheritance. After that… who knows? These plans are not plans just to have plans, but rather a means of drawing closer to the Lord’s heart and preparing myself for Him. 
This year will never be a mountain top experience for me.
Those are too short-lived.
No, this year will remain a season where the Lord wooed my heart
in the vastness of his beauty
and opened my eyes to
His eternal treasure I long for.
