So I made it out of Cote d’Ivoire in one piece and sound mind, it was a hard month but I also grew in boldness and standing up for what I know is right, standing up for God and myself. I came out loving God even more than I did in month one and trusting Him more than I trust myself and anyone or anything on this earth. I came out wanting to speak more about my relationship with God and spending more time discussing scripture with God. I came out loving this life God wrote for me with more passion and boldness.
We are now in Ghana, month six, half way through with the world race and one month away from being in Asia for the remaining five months of the race. Talk about excitement and pure expectancy of the future.
We met up with the rest of our teams that were spread throughout Cote d’Ivoire and I got to see ALL my people and I missed them dearly and not being able to speak to them on a regular made the reunion of travel day even more exciting. I’ve been bless to have a few people on my squad that I call my people, people that when something good, hard, joyful ; just anything that happens you just want to tell them all about it in full detail and just let them in on your excitement.
Rachel Hargreave is one of those people to and for me. Since training camp, she’s just caught my attention, than we ended up on the same team for four months and she became more than a sister but a world race best friend. Than team changes happened and we weren’t on the same team anymore but we still were each other’s person. After a month of not speaking to her on a daily, I couldn’t wait to see her and hug her and that I did..but wait while hugging her I realized that she was on fire, like fever fire. She later told me that she was sick and not feeling well.
we got on our bus, got off the bus, got shots at a bus station, got on a bus and started our journey to Ghana and catching up while we were awake. See me and Rachel don’t just speak about the funny things in life but we speak about life, death, and we dive deep into scripture and speak truth and life into each other, we challenge each other in areas that we don’t want to be challenged and she’s not afraid to tell me when I’m being a brat, disobeidint or when I’m not walking in alignment with Christ.
We get to ldw (leadership development weekend), where we spend a weekend as a squad learning from one another and the first day there she decided to go to the hospital to see what was wrong and during lunch I found out she choose to be admitted so that they can moniter her (she’s a nurse so I trust her judgement) but that ment that she was going to be spending new years eve in the hospital and my heart was not okay with that. so I asked one of our squad leaders if I could spend the night in the hospital and I was told no and my heart broke (their was only one extra bed and our squad leader was going to the hospital over night). Your girl nearly cried, it was by far the hardest no, I have ever had to deal with but after a few minutes I was pulled aside and told YESSS!!!! There were tears y’all!!
I headed to the hospital and I was with my girl, my person, my Raquel (Spanish for Rachel) and she was surprised and happy. I was happy to be with my person and of course God made it a teaching moment. As we sat in the hospital watching movies, laughing and waiting for 2018. God told me to take a look at a full spirit, a spirit that is sick and not feeling well but chooses to laugh, smile and just enjoy what is giving to her. She’s not dwelling on the fact that she’s in the hospital but on all the love she is receiving from the squad and myself. She is focus on how she is not alone for the new year and how God is loving her well through people. He spoke to me and said she has my complain about being sick, frustrated but gives it to him through pray, weak but places it before Him and focuses on blessings and not the negative. She didn’t allow the enemy to take away from the blessings God has placed before her. She looked pass the sickness and pain and focus on the treasure that was before her. She focus on having her person come spend the night with her, she focus on being able to watch movies, pray, take selfies, dress in traditional African clothes, drink red grape sparkling juice, eat rice and chicken. She focus on being able to see a new year and reflect on the past five months of her life, that has changed her heart, her life and the people around her forever. She focused on being able to sleep on a bed she didn’t have to share, have a flushing toilet and a mirror. She focus on the blessings of hearing new born babies cry (they put her in the maternity wing of the hospital), she focused on reafing scripture and discussing it while coming up with questions for her dad (he’s a pastor, hi dad!!!) she focus on getting to leave the hospital in time for us to go to the beach, sit , relax and enjoy God’s creation.
God used her to help start my 2018 with a new perspective of not complaining but knowing and trusting that God has it all under control and to just flow with Him, to walk with Him and love Him no matter what is going one. Rachel thank you for being a reflection of Christ and who He was even while he was dying on the cross. Thank you for allowing me yo be a witness to your growth and beautiful transformation. Thank you for letting me speak to my sister Carol!!!! Best moment ever!!!!
