So I know this has been long delayed. Sorry. Time seemed to have slowed
down since coming back to the States. The World Race has officially ended for me about 3 weeks ago, and I’m currently in Chicago staying at my
parents’ waiting on God to reveal the next step.
THANK YOU everyone who prayed, donated, supported me in various ways, I
could not have done this without your support!
How was the trip? One word would not be able to describe it. Amazing,
heart-breaking, hard, eye-opening, challenging, rewarding, beautiful, growing
…… It was definitely one of the major milestones in my life that I know I would
often look back upon.
I remember at the beginning of the Race one of my biggest prayers was
that He would give me a heart of compassion,
because too often I found myself hearing disasters happening in the news and
yet feeling apathetic towards it, far removed from it.
I remember God breaking my heart for the students in Ecuador in
month 2.
I asked God to help me laugh
more in month 3 for I had found myself unable to see the humorous side of
things or be more joyful around my teammates.
I forgot what month it was, but I remember sharing with my teammates
during a teamtime much later about that prayer and seeing how God has already
changed me and how I’ve been able to laugh easily.
I asked God to open my eyes
to the work He is doing.
I met many first generation Christian youths who are so passionate for
God and the lives of their family and friends that it puts my lack of action to
shame.
I asked God to show me how to listen
to Him and to assure me that I do hear
His voice.
I was surprised again and again by the words He gave me to give to
somebody I don’t know and how those words touch them and spoke to them.
I asked God to give me the courage and obedience to be like the prophet
Jeremiah who brings hard messages that people don’t want to hear, to not be afraid to look ‘foolish’.
I realized through that how much I care about the approval of people and
how much obedience I had to learn.
One of the characters of God that I’ve experienced the most this year is His steadfastness/faithfulness.
Even on our worst day of ministry when our attitudes were so bad and I
thought “there’s no way we are gonna touch any lives today because of our lousy
attitudes”, God showed Himself to be so faithful to speak to that person
regardless, and I realize that it’s not about what we do, but what He does.
2 Timothy 2:13 “If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful,
for He cannot deny who He is.”
Needless to say, I have come back changed and a very different person
than I started out as. The hardest part now is to figure out how to integrate
what I have learned into the next step that God is calling me to (which I still
have no idea yet! But am confident that He will reveal in His time). Thank you
again for your gifts that have made a difference in my life and the many other
lives that we got to touch around the world this year. Honestly speaking, I
would not hesitate to recommend this trip to anyone because of the radical
changes that I’ve seen in my squadmates and myself. Not only that, I’ve also
been tremendously blessed by the people at Adventures in Mission (AIM, the organization of which World
Race is a part). Would you consider a year end financial gift to AIM to help
sustain the work God is doing as together we plant the Kingdom around the
world? In fact, several generous donors have agreed to match the
first $20,000 given!
If you
would like to participate, please send your gifts by visiting http://adventures.org/YearEnd/ today.
Here’s a video that one of my squadmates Emily Tuttle made. In her words “Watch and see what God has done this year with
a group of ordinary people who were willing to step into an epic story. And
consider the fact that you too are part of this story. You too have been called
for such a time as this. You too are running this race, so lace up your shoes
and get out there!”
