**This is an update from the blog that I posted in July entitled “Defer, Wait, & Hope.” If you haven’t already, please go read that one first. Thanks! Enjoy!
“Why God? Why do I have to wait longer?”
“Why is the money not coming in? It seems like there are a ton of people willing to support me but they just haven’t donated yet.”
“I thought that the timing was perfect of when I would leave for The World Race. I would end up at camp, go home for 10ish days to tie up loose ends and say see ya laters, and then start the actual World Race. “
This was my conversation with God and my thoughts about deferring the Race until January 2015 back in June when I didn’t meet the first big financial deadline before attending Training Camp.
Well, I finally came to terms with the reality that I wasn’t supposed to leave when I thought I was about the middle of July. God gave me peace about the situation even though I didn’t really have a clear reason why, yet.
I think I have an answer why now; at least part of the reason anyways. Keep reading for the answer.
Short version: Grandma is sick and dying soon.
The DETAILS:
As some of you know, my grandma is close to dying any day now. To make a long story short, she went into the hospital on my first official day of Training Camp, for the World Race, October 11th, 2014. They did some tests and found that she has an aggressive form of cancer in her abdomen. Through much prayer and looking at options and quality of life, we have decided not to fight it. The doctors thought she would have maybe 4 – 6 weeks to live, maybe longer, maybe not. It has been 4 weeks and 2 days at this point (11/10/14). Currently: She pretty much sleeps 24/7. She is highly medicated and we are just trying to keep her comfortable. Hopefully for her sake it won’t be long before she quits fighting and goes home to be with Jesus where there will be no more pain or suffering.
Back to the reason: I feel like I did not leave for the Race in September because I would not have been able to be here to help support my mom and aunt during this difficult time, and I would probably be a wreck myself if I was in some other country and didn’t really get a chance to say good-bye. Trying to do ministry in Asia would have been really difficult with the thought of this always in the back of mind. I may have even highly considered coming home from the Race. If I had made that choice to come home, then I would have been highly disappointed in myself because that would have meant that I quit. If you know me at all, then you know that I don’t like quitting. I like to see things through to the end, sometimes to a fault. And if I chose not to come home, my family may have been disappointed although they would have understood, hopefully.
So folks, God knew that this was going to happen. So I am trusting to believe that God made the choice for me with delaying funds for the Race back in June. I still feel like this is where the Lord has called me to. And who knows, maybe God is calling me into full-time missions and participating in the Race is just a deeper look as to what it is like to be a full-time missionary. I’m sure there will be a blog about this at some point, 😉
One thing that I seem to keep learning through this whole process of taking a journey on the World Race is that things never seem to go as expected. Yes, sometimes it can be frustrating but I am learning to be flexible. Side note: Training Camp definitely helped foster this… no schedule all week, that was rough but I survived… and surprisingly, I became less stressed about it as the week went on. So, once again, I have to surrender my expectations to God and continue to pray for God to help me be open to where He is leading. I am still a work in progress and I know that He won’t give up on me and I intend to not give up trying to become who He is making me.
Lastly, I am still looking for some prayer partners and financial supporters. Should you choose to seriously commit to praying for my team and I, please let me know and I can give you specific updates and prayer requests as they arise. If you’d like to donate financially, click on the Support me! link in the left hand column on this page. Thank you to all those who have supported me thus far! I am truly blessed to have your support!
Keep Lookin’ Up,
Misha
