So as I have mentioned briefly in blogs at times, each month, the Lord gave me a word/statement, that was what He was teaching me that month, or what that month meant to my spiritual walk. NOW, I am going to share all of the ‘peices of my puzzle’ as I like to call them, with pictures from each country.
First 3 months- I was on team Nikao, and the Lord nurtured my soul these months, gave me a team that I naturally would be friends with, a team who understood me and poured into just like I needed at that time. He used this team for me to see my identity in Him, not the identity I had been carrying around.
1st month- Philippines:
Puzzle Piece- I WAS NOT MADE TO COMPROMISE.
I realized how many areas of my life I would fall short. Whether it was daily decisions like having my quiet time, the way I spoke to people, making plans to get sometime done. Or in bigger decisions, like relationships I chose to get involved in with men or the way I took care of my body. I was tired of being in same cycle of sin and the Lord started showing me the areas He wanted me to change.
2nd month- China:
Puzzle Piece- I WAS MADE FOR VICTORY.
After God showing me the areas in my life I needed to change, He also matched it with a simple phrase I have always heard but this time, He made it an intimate statement for me. I started speaking it to myself when I felt like compromising or giving up on something. It spurred me into a new kind of confidence with sharing the gospel with the Chinese students we met.
(Which by the way, the church we planted before we left is now full of Chinese students and financially independent! And some of the girls I invited to the church are now regular attendees and one is in leadership. Wow God.)
3rd month- South Africa:
Puzzle Piece- YOU WERE MADE TO CRAVE ME AND ME ALONE.
My quiet time this month was overwhelmingly romantic with the Lord. I would get up in the mornings, walk to the beach or sit on the deck and watch the ocean and pray and listen to worship. This was the month that I grew closest to the Lord. He showed me how I did not prefer others above myself, so I shared that with my team and all month I worked on little ways to become a true servant. I craved God more than I ever have before. I realized that the reasons why I used to compromise so much in my past was because I craved things above my Savior. When God is the only thing we crave, then…. we truly feel and hear His heart.
Months 4-8: I switched to a different team, team Ruach, but I stayed with one on my teammates Jamie, from Nikao. He put me on a team of people I would not always choose to seek out a friendship with. I tend to gravitate towards the same kind of people, and it’s always easy to love those you connect with naturally. God wanted me to cling to my identity I found the first three months on the race, in the midst of challenges and frustrations. He wanted me to learn to love unconditionally. And through that, God has given me beautiful friendships and memories with each one of my old teammates.
4th month- Mozambique:
Puzzle Piece- YOU ARE A WARRIOR PRINCESS THAT I DELIGHT IN, FIGHT YOUR BATTLE
OHHH boy, how to begin to explain this month… This month about broke me. I was still transitioning from the loss of my 1st team, Nikao, and for the ministry all we did all day was farm… HUGE gardens with boulders underneath with hoes. On top of that, we rarely had running water and it was 110+ heat, sleeping on the ground with a mosquito net that lets no air in, which we had to have so we didn’t get malaria. I dropped to my lowest point, I didn’t hear from the Lord until the last week, I was physically exhausted and I missed my family. Some of you may not believe me, but I audibly heard the Lord that month. The first day we got there I heard “This is your battle to fight.” You should have seen me running around asking who just said that. I didn’t know how prophetic it would be. That month was my battle to fight, and it was hard. I learned that month to fight despite the outwardly things happening, and despite not hearing the Lord’s voice.
5th month- Swaziland:
Puzzle Piece- ENJOY YOUR JOURNEY WITH ME, SURRENDER, AND IT WILL LEAD TO PEACE.
After my month of fighting in Mozambique, I realized God wanted me to just enjoy the journey He is taking me on, learn how to operate daily in Him, without expecting the next mountain peak experience. So that is what I did. I was at such peace after surrendering what I expected out of God, what I expected Him to teach me. I spent most of my month at The Hope House, a house for those who are terminally ill with AID or TB or Cancer. I grew amazingly close to a family. The mother had Cancer and I got to pray for her daily and daily we prayed pain away in her arm, and she would be brought to tears each time she opened her eyes and the pain was gone. We read the Bible with her, she and her family were believers. Recently I got some messages from her daughter and husband, and she is now with the Lord. It was hard for me to realize yet I gained peace from knowing that she has no more pain.
6th month- Romania:
Puzzle Piece- REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS
This puzzle piece was very important to me. God showed me that Rejoicing in the Lord also means to rejoice also with other people. I realized that many time I did not rejoice with people like I should. That month I wrote a very personal blog for me. As a woman, and honestly, sometimes as a man, we get jealous of people and in turn we do not rejoice with them like we should. It’s an ugly human truth but it’s there. The spirit of comparison is a serious thing, and I did not want to have that in any part of my life, so I started learning how to truly rejoice for other people just as the Lord would. This was ALSO the month I have into God’s calling to staying at home for a year when I get back. It was an amazing month of ministry. We loved our contacts and felt like family to them. It was a freezing cold month! I was very involved in teaching english to some of the community and who knew the impact I would have because two months later, I got this e-mail from one of the men in our class…..
"Dear Rachel and Dear Kathryn,
Today I correctly read your 'good bye' letters because Dorothy helped me. I tried to
translate them using a dictionary, but my translation wasn't exactly right.
I want to share with you both something wonderful that God did. On Sunday, March 18
I was scheduled to lead the time of prayer at the morning service. I found myself in a
very complicated situation because something happened in my life like the Lord talked
about in the parable in Luke 11:21-28. If I would have led the prayer devotional as if
everything in my life was alright, I would have been a hypocrite and a 'ticalos' (I looked the
word up in dictionary and means scamp, scoundrel, vile, wicked – Dor)
So (even though it was not easy) I confessed in front of the whole church (through a microphone!)
sins which I had committed or thought about doing after I was baptized. After the morning
service ended, people were taken aback and went around me like a leper. I thought I would be
suspended or expelled from the church. But exactly the opposite happened from what I thought it would.
(A sentence follows here which I can't make out. Something about "the message preached that
evening was about a judge who judges himself alone"). The brothers treated me very kindly after
the evening preaching and they even sent me messages of encouragement by cellphone. The wonderful
thing God did was that after I confessed publicly, He turned His Face again towards me and once
again brought peace to my soul.
May He be praised for His goodness.
Amen!
I did not participate in the English course with the new World Race team because I worked two weeks
farming/planting and now I'm sick with the flu so I was not able to take part. But I'm not too disappointed
about this because I have sufficient written materials and CD's in English at home with which I can again
start learning when I have time.
I miss you both. I miss Rachel's sensitivity and kindness and I miss Kathryn's optimism (high spirits) and
cheerfulness. The character qualities you both have manage to delight and lift up (refresh) the heart of
a man no matter how down or depressed he might be. People who know you are very lucky and those who
don't know you yet: 'I'm sorry for them!' My wish is that you will finish your trip around the world without
any unpleasant incidents and that you will be loved and admired as you were in Romania.
I'm really sorry that I can't yet write correctly by myself in English so I will rely on Dorothy's help
this time. Because I didn't want to bother her too much I wrote both of you this same letter.
In the future I will really try to write alone.
I miss you and I wish with all my heart that the Lord will take care of you and give you much
happiness in this world, not only in the one to come.
V – 01.04.2012
7th month- Bulgaria:
Puzzle Piece- REST IN ME
This was a short month for us, only two weeks, and it seemed like our whole team was exhausted. One night as a team we listened to a podcast and it hit us hard. We learned what resting in the Lord really looks and feels like. Which was perfect timing, because the contacts we had wanted that exact thing for us. We lived above them in an apartment and they took us in like family and wanted our time there to be a time of rest, a time of restoration.
8th month- Croatia:
Puzzle Piece- LOVE UNTIL YOUR HANDS AND FEET BLEED, LOVING HURTS.
This was a long month because Bulgaria was cut short, we did a lot of clean up at the church the girls on my team were living at. We also went to a different town for some time and spoke at a lot of english and even got to me on the radio! As most spiritual walks, sometimes it is hard to time a balance because, I found rest, but I went too extreme. I rested which turned to me not trying. I was not pursing my teammates like I should, I was so focused on me that I compromised. From the beginning of the race we always heard that in month 8, something changes, and it is really easy to just let your race go. After the first two weeks, God hit me upside the head. I had been resting from loving, because I was tired of loving others, serving others, I thought I was losing myself in the midst. The truth is, loving hurts, it’s hard, but it’s what we are called to do. Jesus loved us so much he hung on the cross, making his hands and feet bleed, I am sure he wanted to give up, but he knew God’s will for his life… Needless to say, the last two weeks, everything changed for me, all it took was a swift kick in the butt! This was also the month that the squad leaders came and talked to me about being a team leader for an all girls team.
Months 9-11- I stepped up to be a team leader for an all girls team, that we named, Beauty From Ashes. That is was the team was for all of us. After going this far in the race, facing a bunch of junk, fighting, learning, trusting, breaking down at times, this was a time to see the fruit and Beauty from our race. It truly was that for me. I have always ran from leadership in my life unless I truly needed to step up but now I chose to walk into where God wants me to be. God told me it’s not about me anymore. That He has refined me in the correct way to now step up and serve others above myself, because I have concreted my identity through not only comfortable and easy times(1st three months) but uncomfortable and difficult times(months 4-8). He was teaching me that focusing on others does not take away from who I am, in fact that is who I am.
9th month- Guatemala:
Puzzle Piece- YOU CHOOSE WHO YOU WANT TO BE
I spent my month was a team of girls who we went to a house for malnourished babies, and we were pretty much their mothers. It was a tender month for me. It was also a strange month trying to find the way I operate as a leader. I found myself not feeling like myself at times and then I had to reflect on the leaders in my life I looked up to, and they all remained consistent to who they were in leadership and not, so God used that for me to see that I choose who I want to be, I don’t have to fit a mold but I am in control of the person I am. OH! This was also the month of WOMISTRY- the month where it is all girls on our squad and the men have MANISTRY.
10th month- Honduras
Puzzle Piece- YOUR HEART BREAKS FOR WHAT BREAKS MINE
I think that we all know these lyrics in a worship song- “Lord break my heart for what breaks yours.” Well, this month, it happened, it always was there and I felt it all year but this month was the grand finale! I was at a ministry that took in street boys and helped them get off drugs, stop drinking, give them hope, and know Jesus. For the sake of writing too much about how much I loved this month, I will just say that I built relationships with these boys and heard their past, and now, I will never be the same.
11th month- Nicaragua
Puzzle Piece- LIFE IS FLEETING (hence the last blog I put up)
The last day in Honduras I lost my grandma and my mom started going in and out of the hospital and to say it lightly, I was mad and confused at God. I think anyone who goes on The Race, they want to change, but their are times still, that we think we have forever to become the person we want to be, or fix the relationships we need to fix, but God used these things to show me that I have to choose to be ready when I get home to change, to know I don’t have forever, to take advantage of my time with my family and friends.
As you can tell by every month being filled in…. I AM HOME!!!! As I said bye to all my teammates, I didn’t feel much emotion, I thought it didn’t really feel real to me. Well, after the flood of emotions from seeing my family, later that night it hit me. I BROKE DOWN. I realized trying to find the blend between the person I became on The Race and the person I was is going to be hard and emotional. I am still trying to process through a lot seeing as I have only been home for a few days but God is good and has already opened a few doors that I have been praying about. I plan of trying to write a few more blogs but please forgive me if I don’t! For all you on my mailing list, I am going to be sending out final letters in the mail when I get a chance to breath some. If you are not on my mailing list and have not gotten newsletters all year and would like to, shoot me your address!
Now, right now, to express my gratitude to you all properly would be impossible, so I want to just humbly say, thank you. Thank you more than you will, ever, ever, ever know. Thank you for the e-mails, comments, and prayers. Thank you. Please continue the prayers because I am still adjusting quite a lot.
