Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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I am sitting in the Kiev airport wondering what world did I just step in to. Surrounding me are hundreds of Orthodox Jews dressed in top hats and Amish looking apparel with long curls dangling on either side of their face. We were all crammed into the worst customs line I have seen in 9 countries and every time a new group of people landed they literally ran like children to the shortest line and pushed themselves in front of us! It was unbelievable to see! All in all, it took 2 hours just to walk through the customs border control!

Our layover in Bucharest, Hungry was our first encounter with this new culture. I walked by about 60 top hat’d men chanting and bowing to a wall as if it was the Wailing Wall itself in Jerusalem. I only found out later that about 20,000 to 30,000 Orthodox Jews are traveling from all over the world to Kiev, Ukraine for the Jewish holiday Rash Shana. Appeared to be something like a Jewish Mecca.

It reminded me how we can tend to redefine God by our human standards of rewards for obedience and punishment for sin when all God wants is for us to rest in a love that goes beyond anything we do or don’t do
because it is His very nature to love,
because He is love,
and because He cannot disown that.
He loves us and THAT’S redefining!

Standing there shoved between hundreds of people who spoke different languages, had different beliefs, and looked different from each other, I hear God say, “I love them, Kate, I just love them.”

Quick Update

We are launching back out to the field after a week long conference and team debrief in Ireland intended to pump us up to finish strong. There were about 6 squads in all, alumni, squad couches, squad leaders, speakers, AIM staff and anyone connected. God shook me up, breathed life back into me, reestablished truth in my heart and mind, and taught me more of who He actually is.

Leaving Africa, I felt as if the life was drained from me. Africa was challenging, hard, invading, uncomfortable, but worth it. I am just now beginning to put together what God did in my life and around us while there. So I will write further about it soon.

Travel days always mean little sleep, and I have to seriously mentally prepare for them. For instance, it is 1 AM and I have had about 2 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours and my sleep deprivation leads to unwanted insomnia at random hours of the night.

As I mentioned,we are in Kiev, Ukraine right now staying at a hostel and tonight my team will be taking a train down to Odessa, Ukraine which is located on the banks of the Black Sea. I can only imagine this place will be beautiful! As of now, I know that we will be doing homeless outreach ministry, but I am not sure the full complexity of exactly what we will do.

Sorry I have been very inconsistent in updates and blogs, but with the better internet conditions in Europe I hope to get ya’ll caught up soon! Love ya’ll! Thank you for your prayers! It touches me every time to hear of the support I have back home!

Until Next Time!