How it all began..

Hey guys! Wow, only 7 more months till we are sent out and I’m just figuring out this whole blog thing! Any ways.. Me and my husband Josh are so excited to go~ We cant wait to spread the Good news and be radically changed at the same time! Fellow racers~ we cant wait to meet you guys either! So I just wanted to share with you how awesome God is and how He made it clear to us that He wanted us to go on the world race!

It all began when the seed of the world race was planted.. My friend from GA and her husband (Tara&Josh Bruce) went on the WR and I read their blogs and looked at their photos, it was really amazing the things God did! So me and my boyfriend at the time..(now we’re married=D) would talk about how awesome it would be to go out through all the world and spread the Gospel, since thats really our purpose here on earth anyways. It was a nice thought, but that was about as far as it went.. But then God really started to bring that thought back into my mind.. I’d bring it up and me and Josh would talk about it, but it seemed as though it was still just a nice thought to him, but never really gonna happen.. So I prayed to God, “God, I know you put this on my heart, but if you want us to go, you have to put it on Josh’s heart too!” so I decided I was going to stop bringing it up and wait on God.  A few weeks of silence and then I noticed Josh brought it up in conversation!~ I saw that God was at work, but I new there was still more work to be done. Time went on, but other than that once he never brought it back up. One day I was sitting at starbucks with my friend Lauren, and we were talking about God and holding each other accountable and then we prayed and she had to go. I stayed and did some devo’s and was working on a chapter of my Bible Study hw. It was on ‘God’s Sovereignty’. All of a sudden these 2 men sitting at the table next to me said, ” excuse us, but we noticed that you were taking about God and you are reading your Bible, we are 2 pastors. So we began talking and the 1st thing they said was “wow, God is so sovereign! before He even made us He had this very day planned, where we would just randomly meet. Then they went on and started talking about miraculous healings that God had used them for and one of them even talked about a time when He was in Ethiopia and someone was raised form the dead! On a side note.. I was so excited about this conversation because the gifts of the Spirit have always been intriguing to me, but I’ve always heard that those gifts are not really for today and thats always bugged me~bc the Bible says that if we believe, we will do what Jesus did, and even greater things! So i had recently asked God to show me the Truth~ I prayed” God I believe that Your gifts are still around today, but I’ve never seen them, so if they are, please reveal that to me and show me the right way!”  But going back to the conversation with the 2 pastors… After we were done talking about Gods power and His miracles one of the pastors asked me what my husbands name was so I told him “Josh Rene” then He started talking about Joshua, and He was going on and on about him. I was so confused at the moment, thinking does he know Josh, or is He talking about the Joshua of the Bible or what… I think the other pastor could see my confusion bc he told me-he is prophesying  over your husband right now. So my ears perked up and the next thing the guy said was, ” you and your husband are going to go on mission trips all over the world!” I was so excited and shocked, bc I’ve never experienced anyone prophesying before! So we prayed and then I left and called my husband. I told him how cool it was that I met these 2 pastors and they talked about healings and then one of them prophesied over us, but I told Josh I wasn’t even going to tell him what the guy said bc I just wanted to see what would happened! (Josh grew up in a more conservative church, so he was kinda skeptical of it all, {But God has been growing our faith and showing us both so much!}) But so anyways, we left it at that, and we went about our day. THEN.. after work Josh called me on his way home and said, ” Briana, I’ve been thinking about this alot.. and I dont think that this is any coincidence that you have it on your heart and now I have it on mine, so I think its time that we apply for the World Race.” I was like ~ WOAH! Thats exactly what the pastor prophesied about! It was so exciting and such a total answer to prayer in many ways.  Bc there was no coincidence that I asked God to show me if those “gifts” were still used today, and then I meet these random pastors, and he randomly prophesies over us, and then out of the blue Josh brings it up right after! God is so good and He is so faithful! We then applied, and here we are today preparing for the race! We cant wait for the things God is going to do, the ways God is going to use us, and the ways God is going to change us! We want to live that radical life for Jesus! Leave our comfort and all our things.. just leave it all behind and follow Him! My prayer for our team is that Jesus truly becomes our everything and we go out and be His hands and His feet! May the world and its desires fade away as He becomes greater and greater!