It’s finally here! With this New Year comes new nations, new friends, new adventures, and new insight into God’s wonderful plan of redeeming man through Christ Jesus. On January 10th, I will be embarking on a radical journey to 11 countries for the next 11 months. Our first stop is India, where we will be working with a Christian organization helping with church planting, building relationships and working to alleviate poverty in unreached villages. (I know it sounds ambiguous, but I don’t know how much I’m actually allowed to share). It’s surreal to think that what has been a dream for a year and half is actually happening!
2016 has been a journey in itself and has God’s fingerprints are all over it. He was faithful and wonderful every step of the way. He was faithful through the route, through my team, through fundraising, and through any obstacles that came up along the way. My attempt in this blog is to praise God for his amazing works, and give you some insight into how I got to the starting line of the race.
There are only a handful of people that I know who truly live passionately in this life. They are people who will sacrifice their finances, futures, even their own lives to do what they know is their calling. It has been trill to know these people and I am consistently excited by their lives. I have lived a blessed life, but there hasn’t been much that I’ve truly been passionate about. I’ve had many opportunities that were exciting to me; ones that I was willing to taking a risk or two for, but have never brought me to the point of abandon. “Abandon” being the point where your willing to sell everything to get there and ignore every voice that discourages you to accomplish an endeavor. When I first started researching the world race, it seemed to wake me up inside in a way I’ve never felt before. It was so wonderful to me that life didn’t seem worth living if I could not take this chance and go. When passion shines its face on you, and God ordains it, then it becomes a calling.
During my senior year of college during the fall of 2015, I spent much of my time thinking and praying. I felt I was ignorant of what it really meant to follow Jesus and that I’ve only been scratching the surface of life thus far. (If you read Acts, you’ll get where I’m coming from). I felt a strong pull to go, but also knew I had a tendency to be impulsive. So I sought out the counsel of many individuals including my cousin (who was a pastor) and my academic advisor (who turned out to be a Christian). All signs and influences pointed to GO.
I prayed for my route for months before applying for the race with the countries that were on my heart, he answered that prayer with route 3.
The fundraising journey was one that started out with copious anxiety, but ended with a newfound understanding of a sovereign Father who owns everything and puts in on the hearts of people to generously give when He calls someone. I was very determined, so much that in the beginning that I considered my plan “B” to be sell everything I had to get to the race (my parents were glad it never go to plan “B”. I came into the process with the mentality that no sacrifice was too big and no gift too small. This task was not easy, seeing as I’m not the most outspoken person, but fundraising was absolutely necessary and turned out to be a great lesson in faith. It’s a wonderful thing when passion and grace push you to act outside of what you normally would do.
Listening to the Holy Spirit was vital and He lead me on a fundraising journey that made no Earthly sense. My fundraising technique was not very creative, I sent a lot of emails, made a lot of phone calls, and went home for spring break to do many presentations. The most important aspect of fundraising is prayer and I cannot stress that enough. During that time God called me to be a counselor at Eagle Lake Camp where I knowingly would only make $1300 for the summer, but would get to minister to high school students. Somehow, I ended up fully funded by the time camp ended that summer. My fundraising verse turned out to be Matthew 6:38 which says, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Every time the God put it on my heart to give, He would multiply the gift with hundreds or thousands of dollars in donations almost instantly.
I ran into obstacles after training camp after my student loan deferment request was denied. I was humbled that I had to begin fundraising again, but thank God for great friends! Friends from camp helped me pay for my vaccines and my student loans for the next year entirely through a $2000 donation from New Beginnings Church, a recently flooded church that we were helping to rebuild in Baton Rouge. The pastors didn’t know how much I needed for loans, but of course it turned out to be the exact amount – only God!
Overall, this past year has taught me much about humility, dependence, prayer, provision, perseverance and faith. I’ve learned that if God has a calling for you that He will make a way for you. I can’t wait to see what miracles will unfold in the upcoming year! Thanks to all those friends and family who encouraged and supported me along the way.
