New Team…
At the end of month three (March/Honduras), D Squad shuffled into 5 new teams of 7 as our new squad leaders were raised up from the pack.
Our Alumni Squad Leaders, Hope, Mac, and Caitlin, prayed over Pris, Britt, and LQ on their last night with D Squad at our month four debrief in Romania.
Britt, Priscilla, and Lindsay Q (LQ) spent month four being trained by our Alumni Squad Leaders, and are now leading D Squad on their own!
Let me introduce you to my new team, Team Meizon!
our first team picture! Wes, Naomi, Hosanna, Me, Hugh, Jo Linda, and Jill.
Our team name, “Meizon” (pronounced mÄ�'-zÅ�n), as defined in Thayer's Lexicon, comes from the Greek meaning "greater, larger, elder, stronger".
Team Mezion was formed as our squad entered month 4 of the race.
We are no longer rookies on the field…
We’re fluent in World Race…
-packing experts
-speak the language of charades
-have more than 4 currencies in our wallets
-always carry toilet paper with us
-know how to worship in a language that’s not our own.
-we eat whatever is put in front of us.
-pray and see people healed.
-speak life into people.
-live an adventure every day.
…And we’re beginning to master feedback…
As fluent World Racers, we are entering the deeper part of the Race. The honeymoon phase is over; we are experiencing the adventure as well as the mundanity of our daily life abroad. We know challenges will arise from the complacency of "race life". As a new team, we are pressing in to the Promise Land {growth, transformation, fruit in ministry} that God has for us in the months ahead, instead of coasting through the next 6 1/2 months. We will face giants in the land…{personal struggles, relational challenges, physical hardship} but the Lord brought us together to challenge and sharpen one another, and He has called us to do greater things than even He did.
We’ve been a team for 6 weeks now and as God takes us deeper with Him …
we are seeing/hearing/speaking/doing/living a more radical life together…
loving and encouraging each other, so that as a team we can do what God has called us to do in every country…
"heal the sick*, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you have received; freely give."
-Matthew 10:8
*last weekend some of our team prayed for a woman and her eyesight was restored. To get the full story read "Miracles in Ukraine, a Story of New Eyesight."
New Continent…
Entering month 4 of the race we left Central America behind, and traveled 5 days to finally arrive in Oradea, Romania! Check out Stacy Chew's Video to see our house in Oradea.
During our month in Oradea we lived on the dairy farm owned by Caminul Felix, an organization that helps parents adopt and raise Romanian orphans.
With the guidance of Benjamin, our builder, we helped construct a house for one of the villages through Habitat for Humanity.
Central America and Eastern Europe are like night and day.
We went from…
Living in an abandoned nightclub
Tents and sleeping pads
Cold showers
Beans and rice
Tile floors
dusty dirt roads
Tank tops and shorts
Delicious coffee
Waterfalls
Exotic Beaches
riding in truckbeds and overcrowded school busses
Speaking Spanglish with street kids and orphans
Worshiping in Spanish
picking mangos off a tree in our backyard
Being sick with parasites
To…
Living in an Inn on a dairy farm
warm, cozy beds
steaming hot showers
dumplings and stews
couches and carpet
paved roads and roundabouts
sweaters and tights
farm fresh milk
caving adventures
riding in european vans and sleeper-car trains
the architecture of Budapest, Vienna, and Prague
Speaking English with European 20somethings
Worshiping in Romanian
milking a cow in our backyard
Being sick with parasites and the flu
New Creation…
The first three months of the Race the Lord exposed a lot of crap in my life and took me down a messy road I had been avoiding for years. The road was lined with painful memories, dark decisions, humiliating confessions, and utter heartbreak. At the end of the road I found what I had only hoped for, dreamed of, and yearned for so long to find. Redemption. Freedom. Transformation.
You see, when I started the race, I was a pretty messed up girl, living a lukewarm life of following Jesus. I reserved part of my heart for Him, but at the end of the day, I called the shots. I was literally walking in circles with my faith. Like the Israelites in the desert, I roamed the wilderness for years, because I didn't listen and follow him completely (Hebrews 4:12-13). When I applied for the race, it was my first act of stepping out and saying, "Okay, Papa, here it is. My life." And my hope was that once He got me out here He would start really stirring things up…
Sure enough, in month one God made His first move in transforming my heart. He exposed all the crap that has always stood between me and Him {earthly desires, selfish ways; parts of my life I had never surrendered to Him}. Frustration overcame my heart because of these distractions clouding our intimacy. He asked me to surrender the things I want so badly that have nothing to do with Him, and everything to do with my momentary desires. He asked me to draw near…forget everything…fix my eyes on Him.
During month two our Squad Leader Hope prophesied over my team (Lionsong) that "I {God} will lead them to the Jordan River to dip themselves seven times- it won't be the way they want it to happen, but it is the best way." In 2 Kings 5 Elisha told the Syrian King Naaman to be healed of leprosy he must dip himself in the Jordan River seven times. The King went away enraged at the idea of cleansing himself in the filthy river water.
“I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?”… Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. -2 Kings 5
At the end of month two I sat at the foot of the cross, my wounds exposed, full of shame and heartbreak. I longed for healing, restoration, transformation and newness. I wanted so badly to be a woman I had only dreamed of becoming. I needed to choose healing.
When God offers us freedom- redemption from the crap that binds us- it doesn't always come through the wave of a hand or an instant prayer for release from bondage. The cleansing river that frees us may be the last place we would think to get our drink, let alone find our healing. I didn't see the healing power of the river He chose. But He gave me the strength and the foolishness of faith to step into the muddy water. After the first time, I saw the healing power of the brown muck, {the painful choices}, and every day I walked to the river with a little more anticipation, a little more faith. It took almost thirty days of choosing Jesus, stepping in, and fully submerging myself, time and time again, for me to see my own transformation.
Now I've experienced enough of God's goodness and reward that when He tells me to follow Him…I do it. When He tells me to fix my eyes on Him, I know it's because if I look at the muddy water, I will decide with my own mind that there is no way stinky, grimy, brown water will heal me. I am concerned with self-preservation which keeps me from seeing the good in opening wounds to receive healing {or stepping into the "muddy water"}. Sometimes the cure is in the cutting open of wounds, and when the Lord wounds us, He binds us up. (Job 5:18) The entirety of month three (Honduras) I spent learning what it means to let Him bind up the wounds by fixing my eyes on Him and Him alone. Now I walk with my eyes fixed on the righteousness of Christ. A new creation, I am discipl(in)ed. I am His.
To see more photos from my World Race, visit my photo blog at seerobinfly.tumblr.com
I still need $2,900 by July 1st to reach my last fundraising deadline and continue my race!
Donate to my race online!
