It’s well past time that I shared an update! A lot has happened over the last 3-ish months. They’ve been full of challenge, weariness, growth, rest, adventure, victories, team changes, revelations, beautiful countries, and great relationships. The difficulty of writing blogs seems to have increased significantly this second half of the race. Anyway, here’s a little recap of the last several months. This is mainly the experiences we encountered, but I will try to also get a blog up about what’s been going on emotionally and spiritually with me. 
Laos (Month 7): I was with Team PFOT (Pierced For Our Transgressions) and we had a month focused on something called Unsung Heros (UH). While the rest of our squad went to various cities in Vietnam, we ventured into Laos! We had the privilege of exploring this absolutely beautiful country in search of potential partners for future World Race teams. We had no contact we were assigned to like other months to determine what ministry would look like…it was up to us. Success is difficult to measure with a UH month, and we had challenges as a team pressing through the month; but overall it was a great month full of opportunities to put our growth from the previous 6 months of the race into practice. Not many people speak English in Laos, but we made a few connections with locals, and were able to serve alongside an already existing ministry for our final 10 days in the country. Choice, risk, and vulnerability were the themes for me this month.
Northern Ireland (Month 8): PFOT met up with the rest of the squad in Vietnam and in the airport, we were assigned new teams for hopefully the final time! After 7 months of being in Africa and Asia and everything unfamiliar, we entered Europe with our new teams. Beautiful doesn’t seem to be an adequate enough word to describe this country! My new team, EMET (Hebrew word for Truth), was again in a different city from the rest of the squad who served in Coleraine. We spent the month in Belfast with New Life City Church! We were so incredibly blessed by the community there. This church’s physical property is set right between 2 communities that are divided by an actual wall. They set out to be a beacon of light, peace, and truth to bring the 2 communities together and to Christ. Murals representing the 2 communities cover the walls throughout the city. Our main ministry was painting flags of different nations (representing peace and unity) on part of the fence between these 2 sides, and touching up an already existing mural. We also got to work with their youth and put on a “summer scheme” for the kids our last week. They loved us so well and we finished the month with some lovely wee relationships. Rest and Worship were themes for me this month.
Romania (Month 9): We had an amazing time of debrief in Brasov to start off our month in Romania! Debrief entailed spiritual breakthroughs, exploring the beautiful city of Brasov, great conversations with squad mates, and receiving love from and giving love to our fantastic stateside team. Our team name changed to “No Doubt” after debrief due to some personal breakthrough from team members. Our whole squad invaded the city of Draganesti-Olt together in partnership with Hope Church. Team No Doubt focused on evangelism on the streets of the city and intercessory prayer. A few team members also taught English to some church members (who were also translators, who were also local missionaries) and worked with kids clubs. And then….my mom came for about 5 days!!!! It was awesome to have her share in this experience, and meet squad mates. I loved and was honored to be a part of her very first mission trip and journey overseas! She was a real trooper. We enjoyed our time together; and she had some true race experiences with lacking hot water for showers, unidentified meat sandwiches, shared spaces, and rats. 🙂 Spiritual warfare is really heavy there and we felt it for sure, but God is moving through our brothers and sister at Hope Church. I love the people we had the privilege of serving alongside! The personal theme this month was perseverance in faith and joy.
And now here we are in Moldova (but not really Moldova) for month 10. Team No Doubt is serving with A Team in a city called Transnistria (a.k.a. Tiraspol) which operates as it’s own country, but is not officially so. We are doing construction and English clubs for ministry. It’s been an eventful first week, and I look forward to sharing more about our experiences here after the month ends.
Next month is it y’all….weird. Please be praying for all of us as we are preparing for re-entry back to the states. This has been an amazing year; and we are fighting to stay present, finish well, and soak up every last minute on this journey. Thanks again for all of your support and my apologies for being MIA! Much love to you all!
For pictures visit: https://www.facebook.com/TheFunderama/photos_albums
