If you truly know me as a person, you know that I love people; I long for good, quality relationships, and part of me especially longs for brotherly relationships since I never had a brother growing up. If I’m being completely honest, that was one of the biggest helping factors in deciding to go on the race, was the capacity for building good, Godly, accountability-filled, honest, and brotherly love relationships. The kind of relationship that David and Jonathan had. Again, if you know me well, you know that I have been blessed with an awesome dad, who has been (and still is) my best friend. With not having a brother growing up, he was like my much bigger brother in a sense. But one of the things I longed for was a true “bru”, a fellow man who would encourage me, build me up, call me out, keep me accountable to the standards I want to hold myself to and honestly, to just have fun with.
From the beginning, my teammate Ryan and I hit it off, we often tell people we are twins because we have so much in common (name, birth date down to the year and everything, state of residence, collegiate athletic conference, passions in life, significant others to miss while on the race.) I am convinced that this is no coincidence, God is good. In addition to my true bru, Ryan, I have really been blessed to be around 5 other guys from 3 other teams this month and last night we had some bru time where we confessed some things to each other and then we were able to pray with each other and let each other know that we were all there to support one another and pray for one another through the times when Satan was attacking us. This is the kind of brotherly love and connection that I have been searching for, for a long time. It’s not that other relationships aren’t enough; there is just something about Biblical manly relationships, and brotherly love.
Unity is something that I am really enjoying thus far on the race. Our team is growing closer together every day and I think that will only increase when we are at ministry sites where it is just our team and not three others as well. I’m so thankful for this first month and the brus that God has placed in my life, speaking life into each other has really been a blessing; both ways! I really have enjoyed being able to speak life and blessings and call out the gifts in the fellow men around me. God is good!
