Month 1: love, loss, & LIFE - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

Dedicated to Nan

Oh goodness. It’s about time I give you guys an update don’t ya think???

Let me just start by saying I have tried to write this blog so many times, but every time I begin I just cant find the words. Month one has been both one of the hardest & most fruitful months of my life. It has been challenging, beautiful, heartbreaking, & packed full of divine revelation. I will do my best to summarize it all for you guys, but some things I just can’t quite put into proper words so bear with me!

Grateful. It has been the biggest JOY to get to witness the fulfillment of so many prayers I prayed on my original race. For months I prayed & prayed for the opportunity to go back out on the field, to love & lead Z squad & to get to continue sharing God’s love with the nations. To see these prayers answered over & over again this month has filled me with so much awe & wonder at the faithfulness of our father. I am so incredibly grateful.

Ecuador. A country I had no idea I was going to until the day before I got there. The day we left America on Oct. 7 I got a call from my squad mentor asking if I’d be willing to leave Z squad for a week & travel to Ecuador to meet up with a semesters squad. They were debriefing their time on the field and needed an extra hand because their mentor could not make it herself. After asking the Lord I felt like He had something in store for both me & the semesters squad so after a mere 12 hours of landing in Peru I hopped on a plan bound for Ecuador. My 5 days here turned out to be really beautiful. Every day the Lord confirmed why I was sent to Ecuador. I fell in love with the country & this squad & I am so thankful for my time with them! During my time in Ecuador the country fell into a lot of political unrest. It was the worst any of the locals had ever seen & for a week the squad & I were confined to our little mountain home (but we were safe!) One day the whole squad committed 24 hours of praying for the government, the locals, peace, & reconciliation. Within 12 hours of us praying the country found peace through negotiations & violence ceased. Praise the Lord! He is the God of Ecuador!

Nannie. One of my most treasured ladies in my life went to be with Jesus. I got the news when I was on the mountaintop in Ecuador & my world kinda stopped for a second. I couldn’t believe it, the strongest woman I know was gone & I wasn’t there. I cried & prayed & cried & worshiped & cried. That’s pretty much what a lot of Ecuador consisted of. But then a miracle happened & peace came to the country & I got to go home. I got to go to Texas & be with the people I love most in this world & we celebrated Nan’s life just the way she would have wanted – full of love & good food & flowers & wine & the Astros. It was beautiful. Coming back on the field after such a huge loss in my life has been hard to say the least, but on the flight home to the funeral I met a lady (she might have been an angel I swear) & she told me that once a loved one is gone you start seeing them everywhere. You see them in your mother, in your aunts, in your experiences you know she would have loved & dang, that couldn’t be closer to the truth. Every day I get glimpses of Nan & everyday I get the opportunity to thank Jesus for her life & the legacy she left; the legacy of love & selflessness, of open doors & food on kitchen tables, of growth & humility & more LOVE! I pray that I may never stop seeing glimpses of her until we are reunited in heaven & I pray that the Lord put some of Nan in me too.

Peru. (I know this paragraph is a long one, but guys, it’s GOOD STUFF) Ah Peru, you have quickly become one of my favorite countries. Coming here, I had a really good feeling about this place & let me tell you, it has lived up to the hype. Full of mountains & colors & alpacas & adventures – this country is just plain FUN. My first two weeks in Peru I went to visit team Scelte in Cusco where they were partnered with Calvary Chapel Church. At Calvary Chapel the girls & I did a number of things. We painted the sanctuary, refurbished furniture, went to a home for girls & made crafts with them. The week before I arrived they had created a fundraiser for a Venezuelan refugee who was trying to get the rest of his family to Peru & the week I arrived we put on a women’s retreat for 20 young girls who attend the church. We cooked yummy food, I decided to bake a homemade apple crisp (???), we worshiped, my girl Alycia shared her testimony, we read the Bible together, & then at the end we created a spa where the girls could get manicures done. It was the sweetest night of fun as we taught the girls that they are WORTHY & treasured by the father. The three other teams on my squad had quite the adventure this month as well! Team AMAZEd spent their month in the mountains of Peru working amongst the indigenous Quechuan people. They spent time passing out Bibles (Wycliffe just translated the Bible in their local language!), preaching in churches, & sharing the Gospel. This team also made it a priority to pray for the sick everywhere they went. One day, while worshiping in the market they started praying for the local women. While praying the Lord miraculous began healing the women & soon lines of men, women, & children were formed & all kinds of physical ailments were completely healed!!! PRAISE THE LORD. Team Selah spent the month doing ministry in Lima, but took a week & went into the Amazon jungle where they worked with a local ministry in building relationships with the local people within the indigenous community, which also happens to be an unreached people group (!!!) HOW COOL. Team J Walkers lived by the beach in a town called Trujillo where they spent their month working with youth in the city. They did a ton of sports ministry and made incredible relationships with the locals. All in all Z squad had a pretty sweet first month in Peru.

Alumni Squad Leading. Coming into this new season I basically felt nothing, but fear. I was weighed down by lies that the enemy was telling me & the thought of failing anyone’s expectations was petrifying. But then God proved my fears wrong. Coming out onto the field I was praying for Z squad & my time with them & I got this picture of roots going deep, deep down into soil. And then He gave me the verse Hosea 10:12 “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.” I felt that God was telling me that I’m about to go deeper with these 20 people than I have ever gone before. That I will no longer use methods of self-protection for fear of being rejected, but instead I will fearlessly love them with all that I have. But in order to do that the Lord has to break up some of the fallow ground in my heart & the majority of that has looked like highlighting fears & insecurities & giving me the tools to fight them. As you can guess this has been all sorts of FUN. Haha but in all seriousness I think I have grown more than I ever have in my whole life. It’s been extremely hard, but it has given me so much life & I just get to see the Lord’s faithfulness as He proves my fears wrong over & over again. Every day, slowly but surely, the Lord instilled a newfound confidence in myself that I never knew I could have. He started showing me the authority I carried, the wisdom & passion He has put inside of me, & most importantly He has shown me that because He loves me SO MUCH I truly have no reason to fear. So what if I fail or don’t feel adequate in the moment? The Lord’s love still wraps me up & it will never fail & that gives me all the confidence I need to tackle the challenge or task at hand.

SO. All in all that has been my first month back out on the field. It feels so good to be on the Race again & I quickly fell back into familiar habits that give me a lot of life (like haggling taxi’s or befriending people who are so different from me). Again, I’m so in awe that the Lord has blessed me with this opportunity not once, but twice & I cant wait to continue updating you guys on all of the adventures He continues to take Z squad & I on!

Thanks for reading. I love you all a whole lot!!!

Landry <3