After 11 months of traveling, I am home! It is very strange and bittersweet, and the reverse culture shock is real!
As I walked through LAX to catch my connecting flight home, I was overwhelmed by all the English spoken and that I could understand every conversation around me.
My first night home, I sat on my bed and cried (not in a good way) over how soft my bed was and that I wasn’t sharing a room with at least two other people.
Ultimately, however, I am so thankful. I got to experience community in a way I never imagined could exist. I love each and every person on my squad like mad, and I have brought so many wonderful memories home with me.
This wild journey with the World Race has been an extraordinary one— difficult and painful at times, but ultimately so rewarding and beautiful. I’m in the process of both celebrating and grieving the end of this season and looking forward to the next season! I know the Lord wants to take me to new depths and to experience greater intimacy with Him.
To everyone who has prayed for me this year, to everyone who has read my blogs, and to everyone who has donated to make this experience possible: THANK YOU.
I am not the same person I was when this journey began. The Lord refined and softened my heart in so many ways, to so many things. And because of all of you, I got to:
- openly worship Christ in the streets of China
- give a girl my bible and witness her accept Jesus in the Mongolian countryside
- teach English and cultivate relationships with university students in Kyrgyzstan
- witness the power of prayer as we prayed for the blind, the lame, the deaf, the sick, and the desperate in Kazakhstan
- have a sunset worship session on the Caspian Sea
- let go of bitterness in Azerbaijan
- celebrate my 30th birthday in Georgia
- experience a powerful evening of prophesy in Armenia
- sing my heart out next to Jesus’ tomb in Israel
- explore the desert and live in sweet community with the women around me in Jordan
- see Muslim women’s eyes light up after hearing the name of Jesus for the first time in a refugee camp in Lebanon
- experience deeper intimacy with the Lord, and witness how vulnerability touches souls and breaks down walls in Cyprus
- witness God break down language barriers so His Word could be understood in Morocco
- invite fellow pilgrims to our dinner table on the Camino in Spain, with every chair filled with people from all over the world
And so much more!
Thank you again! I hope to go back out on the field in the future, and I will surely keep you updated if that happens!
God Bless!
