Hola! Nosotros estamos en Guatemala! Este mes, estamos trabajando en una escuela se llama “Casa de Niños,” o “CANI.” Yo estoy en la clase de primer grado. Yo enseña inglés en las mañanas, y en la tarde, nosotros estamos trabajando para hacer una campa de fútbol para los niños de escuela. Pero ahora yo quiero hablar sobre “Launch.”
Hello! We are in Guatemala! This month, we are working in a school called “Casa de Niños,” or “CANI.” I am in the first grade class. I teach English in the morning and in the afternoon, we are working to make a soccer field for the students at the school. But right now, I want to speak about Launch.
“Launch” is the World Race event that gives Racers their final preparations and training before we set out for our first country. The day before I needed to arrive, I missed my flight, but my bag went ahead of me to Atlanta. I sat in the airport crying for about 2 hours, feeling discouraged and overwhelmed, and then my parents took me back home. Here’s a cute pic of that experience:
But praise God for that! I got to spend one more night at home with my parents, in my own bed, without having to worry about getting an Uber to my friend’s house outside of Atlanta by myself. It may have been discouraging and overwhelming at the time, but I knew it was my first exercise in flexibility and trusting in the Lord. I also had been studying David and Job, men of integrity and great faith in the face of trials, so this was just an opportunity to practice those things!
The next morning, I got on the first flight out of Richmond and my mom got to go with me! We spent the whole day together before the first session of the weekend.
Launch was a lot of learning and practicing. Here are my highlights of the week:
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Learning about my role as the Unsung Hero Coordinator. In this role, I will empower my squadmates to find people in specific countries or cities who are not flashy or recognized but are engaging in Kingdom work and may benefit from receiving a World Race team at their ministry.
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Having my parents there with me. Even though we spent most of the weekend apart and in separate sessions, I loved having my parents with me at Launch. Ever since I told them I wasn’t going to grad school and would instead be applying for the Race, I have watched them process, grieve, and accept my decision. But it wasn’t until Launch that I saw all of their fears, anxieties, and doubts completely wash away. They were new, free people at Launch! At some points, it felt like they were more confident and excited about me going on the Race than I was! We got to eat dinner, worship, and eat lunch together. Our goodbye was sweet and weepy, of course, but I’m very excited for the journey that God has for them, too, this year!
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My Key for the Journey. During the night of worship with our parents, an Adventures staff member introduced us to a program called, “Keys for the Journey.” He prayed over each and every Racer launching that weekend and received a word for each of us. That word was then engraved upon a key and given to us to wear as a necklace. Once we have walked with the Lord through the word we were given and seen that journey come to completion, we have been called to pass along our key to someone else who needs to walk through that same word. My word is GRACE. At first, I didn’t know what to think about it; it wasn’t what I was expecting. But now that I’m on the field, it keeps popping up. But that’s for another blog 😉
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Feedback. My team got to practice giving and receiving feedback at Launch. It was our first time doing it, and we left feeling confident in our communication and ability to be a team. Now that we’re on the field, feedback has been one of the most incredible experiences; as a team, we have made a commitment to loving each other, fighting for each other, and calling each other higher. It’s unlike anything else.
- My emotions. At Launch, it still felt surreal that I was about to leave the country for 11 months to do ministry, experience transformational community, and deepen in intimacy with both my squad and the Lord. But I felt excited and ready to GO. I felt expectant that something incredible was about to happen in my life. And I felt trepidatious; I knew that this journey would be hard and I didn’t know if I would try to run away when it got hard, but I didn’t want to. With a resounding “yes” in my spirit, I chose to dive in anyway!
That was Launch in a nutshell! Tuesday morning, October 10th, at 3:45am we left the hotel for the Atlanta airport. We had a quick layover in Ft. Lauderdale and then I left the country for the first time in my life!! Vamos a Guatemala! To be continued…… 😀
