Before I came on the Race, in the time of preparation leading up to launch, people would come up to me and ask what I would be doing for the next year, what types of food I would be eating, where I would be sleeping and a slew of other questions. My responses were these, “We will be partnering with already established ministries, coming along side of them in the work that they are already doing in order to help them and encourage them,” or, “Rice and beans. I am pretty sure that all we are guaranteed are rice and beans.” When it came to sleeping, I imagined that anything was possible, and I wasn’t too far off with that answer.
Breakfast in Bolivia.Now that we are halfway through the Race, which is unbelievable, I can look back and say that I really had no idea what I was stepping into. I could not foresee the challenges that God was going to walk me through, nor could I have imagined how much I could come to love some of the people and ministries who we would work with. I couldn’t have guessed that He would be beckoning me to open up my heart more, to love more, to allow Him to fill me with His joy. In fact, I use to doubt that I could ever let my heart love so many people. I had no idea that one night in Ecuador I would find myself eating fried cow stomach from a street vendor with new friends that I hope to have for life, or for two weeks in Panama that we would be sleeping inside of mosquito nets on ministry grounds in the jungle of the Darien Gap. This World Race has been challenging, exciting, stretching, and beautiful.
Cow stomach!
New friends and family in Ecuador! <3Although I had heard the phrase, “Kingdom journey,” mentioned on multiple occasions before actually leaving the States, I had no idea that the World Race was going to be that for me. In fact, I didn’t think I needed a Kingdom journey. I didn’t think I needed to experience leaving everything behind to go on this adventure into the unknown to get to know God more. I did not know that I needed to reach a point of abandonment and brokeness so that I could come to depend on and trust Him more. Honestly, I thought, “been there and done that,” but I have learned that God will continue to take us on Kingdom journies our whole lives if we let Him and it is for the purpose of helping us die to ourselves. After all, the only person who ever really ends up finding himself is he who first opens up his hands and loses himself.
It is clear to me now that I needed this journey and I still need it. God has been able to reach me in ways and through circumstances that I’m not sure I would have ever experienced if I did not partner with Him and come on this journey. He has been reshaping my perspectives, making my heart softer, and removing things – whether wrong thought patterns, wrong perspectives, wrong attitudes, wrong beliefs – that have gotten in the way of an even more intimate relationship with Him which means living free and fully alive. I have so much more to learn, so many more people to meet, and so many more opportunities ahead of me to be His arms, His hands, and His feet to His children and I know that it is here, on this race that He has called me to do all of those things for this brief moment in time.
So I am asking all of you to either begin partnering with me or to continue partnering with me both prayerfully and financially so that I can finish this race. As all or most of you know, I have only been able to be on this journey because God has been using people like you to support me financially by helping me meet the financial deadlines that ensure my continuance on this World Race. We as a team have been successful in meeting all of the deadlines up until this point and the last one is finally near. Together we have raised over $12,000.00 which has enabled me to be God’s arms as I embraced children who were once orphans but now have a permanent home at Casa de Esperanza in Caranavi, Bolivia (see previous blogs), to be His voice when I whispered to one of those precious daughter’s, “Tu es importante. Tu es fuerte. Tu es bonita. Dios te ama,” as she held tightly to my hands and attempted for the thousandth time to walk with her legs that had atrophied after four years of abuse and neglect, and to be His hands when my team and I scrubbed and santized the neglected and once spiritually broken home of a widow in Puerto Rico.
Lolina, one of the girls who lives at Casa de Esperanza. She could barely walk when we got there. (See cathycurry.theworldrace.org “Who Will Bring Hope?” for more info.)After finishing up work at Ida’s house! <3
His work in me and through me is not finished. I need to keep going. I need to finish this race and I need your help to do so.
The final deadline is July 1st, which is when all funding needs to be in and accounted for and in order to reach it I need $2,257.00. We are currently half way through June but I know that with your help, my place here on this race can be secured. If you would like to partner with me in what God is doing throughout Central America, click on the “Support Me,” link on the left side of the page. Credit cards can take 2-3 days to process and checks can take anywhere from 7-10 business days to process, so if you would like to donate via check, time is running out.
