Let me try and catch you up to speed on everything that has happened since my last post. In the past three weeks, I have spent the night in nine different locations, flown on eight flights, traveled in over 30 taxis, been in four different countries, gone to two embassies, and even joined a new team for a week.
My team left San Andres island on August 28th after an amazing time of being blessed by God and serving those around us. In fact, when my team and I where asked to make a list of all of the blessings we received, it totaled over 20 things! The island was a great experience, because it gave us something to look back on and remember whenever we feel beaten down or discouraged in the future.
On the 28th, we left for Cartagena, Colombia for debrief. Debrief is a time for all the teams to come together and share experiences and take a few days to relax and hangout before heading to our next ministry locations. Also, some of the leadership fly down from the States to talk with us a team and individually about how we are “really” doing.
After debrief, all of us were supposed to travel Florida for a night then on to our next country Guyana, but because of some logistical issues five of us left a week before the other 26 people on our team! I just so happened to be on the team that left early and we called ourselves the Fab 4.5. Our new group included Jeremy, Destiny, Hannah, Neal, and me. It was called 4.5 because I was only with them for half of the time. Only the Father could have arranged for this 7-day gap to occur during my cousin’s wedding, which I was fully prepared and expecting to miss. During debrief and with the approval of the leadership, I called my brother Jeremy and we concocted a plan.
We decided to keep it quiet, just between us, and had great fun with some very unaware family members. So while the rest of Fab 4.5 was traveling from Florida to Guyana, I was flying to Dallas then Tulsa. I was able to surprise my mom, dad, sister, and all the extended family that would be attending the wedding in Dallas. After a short 60 hours of being with family, I was headed back to South America.
I reconnected with Fab 4.5 after 29 hours of painstakingly difficult travel that began with a 4am departure out of DFW airport, a diverted flight, and sleeping in the Trinidad and Tobago airport. I arrived in Georgetown, Guyana on the 12th and for the next two days we were getting lodging in order for the rest of the squad and starting the process for our Suriname and Brazil visas.
As I write this on September 19th, we are a couple days out getting our visas then we will disperse as teams throughout Guyana for roughly two weeks before heading on to Suriname.
My team will be doing what is called ATL, Ask The Lord, in Linden, Guyana this next week. During this time we will not have a pre-arranged host or even location. We will engage in what we call listening prayer, where we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us and show us where we should go, who we should meet, and what we should do.
If anyone received a word from God about where we should go please pass it along!
