hello everyone. my apologies bc it has been a hot minute since I last blogged & by a hot minute I mean almost three months :’). I have been real busy which means there is a lot to update you readers & supporters with!!
leaving Costa Rica called for a hard goodbyeto one of my favorite ministries yet. along with the base in San Jose we stayed at for nearly three months. went to the awakening. moved to Ecuador for our final three months. after a week or so my mom joined me for parent vision trip. after finishing that week, went to mini debrief. experienced a couple more weeks at Dunamis, the place we first started ministry at. moved into the AIM base also in Quito & acquired some temporary parents (Fabi & Mabe— the greatest). so yes I am now writing to you from Casa Blanca (the base) & this our final place we will be staying other than a hostel during final debrief aka our final week on the race!!! crazy!! time is flying but it is filled with a lot of stuff each day.
going to recap a lot of stuff that I mentioned above…. okay go
- had to say goodbye to one of my favorite ministries yet— in all honestly, I didn’t love the ministry itself- it actually was a quite unorganized & unstructured mess most of the time. BUT at that same ministry was where I met some of my most favorite people in the whole wide world (a hint of what my next blog will be about).
- left the Costa Rica base— CR was a hard country for almost every person on my squad, myself included. the base was a place where we spent only three months of our lives but a place where we learned things that will change us for the rest of our lives. for myself personally, I couldn’t wait to walk out those doors for the last time but when that time came around, I was real sad. the ending of seasons is so bittersweet.
- the awakening— holy cow so fun. the awakening is a time when world race squads overlap in the same country for a few days & racers have the opportunity to meet, learn, grow, share, etc. with one another. a really, really sweet time. in the midst of hard & changing things, the Lord knew this is just what I needed. being surrounded by such a large group of believers was incredibly refreshing & being the extrovert that I am, super duper fun. made the best new friends & got to get a little taste of what the Lord was doing in the lives of soooo many of His children— seriously so cool.
- moved to Ecuador— the process of getting there was pretty eventful in itself. our first flight got overbooked & half of the squad had to stay behind (myself being in the half having to stay behind). a few more people went ahead & then my group was still remaining. we then received the news that we were getting a hotel room (still in San Jose, CR) so that we could have breakfast there, take a nap & freshen up. we did just that & it was AMAZING. we got to the airport & were also given a free food voucher for lunch, then got on the plane where we were business class!!! it was a short & luxurious flight to panama where we had a quick layover & then we got on our next flight, also business class, where we were given a top notch steak dinner. that is a travel day I will remember!! we ended up staying at Casa Blanca for the night & then reunited with our squad the following morning.
– we met back up with the squad at Dunamis which is where we spent roughly the first month of Ecuador. Dunamis is an up & coming safe house for women being freed from sex slavery. there were no girls there while we were serving there but they are to be coming this month. so during our time there our mission was to make this place as homey & comfortable as possible for when the girls do come. that looked like us doing manual labor around the property to clean up any debris (nails, rocks, glass) from construction so they can’t hurt themselves, building a wall around the property to keep the girls in & the pimps out, painting the rooms in the house & more. it has been a really cool opportunity to do ministry as a squad, to work alongside the staff who have such big hearts for this place & these girls & just pray for God to do crazy awesome things in the lives of these girls & this place
- parent vision trip— one of the best weeks on my race. if you know me, you know my mom is my best friend, so you can assume that having her around made me the happiest person ever. a week of serving together, being insanely weird & laughing at nothing, & getting all my stuff paid for 😉 a real treat! but for real it was so exciting to have someone so close but also from home, experience what my life has looked like for the past seven months. we both grew in cool ways over a really short period of time & having that week made me especially excited to come home. it’s a good feeling knowing you have a wonderful community to come home to (@ the rest of my family & friends), only 23 more days!!
- mini debrief— spent in a hostel in old town Quito where we experienced a time of rest, processing, learning, & praying for all that is to come!! always a good time!
- after all that time we finally transitioned into living at Casa Blanca & started new ministries but that will be talked about in later blogs so stay tuned folks!
