Hello friends,
It’s Wednesday morning and I’m taking a break from packing, cleaning and organizing to give you a general update about what’s going on in my World Race world.
Training Camp:
Several of you have heard me mention training camp in passing and I haven’t given too many details. First, it starts TODAY! In a few hours I’ll be loading up my car and heading to Gainesville, GA picking up two of my squad mates on the way. I’ll be there through June 17th. Training camp is designed to prepare us for our year on the mission field, and besides the fact that I’ll be camping most of the time I don’t have too many more details for you. I do know that I’ll get to meet my squad, worship, learn details about what we can expect, try food and learn about the cultures we’ll be visiting–oh and there’s that small physical test where we have to walk 3 miles in 50 minutes with our pack on. Someone described training camp as preparing for worst case scenarios while on the field, which means it’s going to be an interesting week. Check out this video for a preview.
World Race Training Camp from World Race on Vimeo.
Preparing my life:
Another hot topic as I prepare for the race is what is happening with my life at home, including my house and my dog. The plan is to rent out my 2 bedroom townhouse starting the beginning of August. What this means is that not only am I having to purge, pack and clean my townhouse, but it also has to be “show worthy” by the beginning of July. If you know me, you know this is no small task. Somehow I’ve managed to accumulate a lot of stuff in this small space over the last few years. A large portion of it will be donated or sold. This has become one of the most time consuming and taxing parts of preparation for me, and an endorsement for living a minimalist life for sure.
My sweet Love-Bug will be going to my parent’s house while I am away. Yes, I will miss her, especially our morning snuggles, but she’s going to be pretty happy. In addition to having a very large fenced-in back yard to explore, my stepmom is home a lot of the day and might have a tendency to spoil her. Love will be very happy (and probably less anxious) while I’m gone.
About my job. Movement Mortgage has been extremely helpful and supportive in this whole process, but they cannot “hold my job” or place me on leave for such an extended amount of time. With that said, I hope to come back to work there when I get back and there has been every indication that door will be open to me when I get back. However, there are no guarantees.
Fundraising:
Fundraising is going GREAT! I’ve been so blessed by so many people’s generosity over the past 5 months. I met my first fundraising goal of $5,000 well before our deadline. I’m currently over the 50% mark for the total amount needed and less than $1,000 away from our next big goal of $10,000 by July 21st. [insert happy dance here] I know that with your help I can knock that goal out by the end of June, no problem.
How you can help – I wanted to share with you some ways that I’d love your help right now.
1. Pray – pray specifically for my squad and this time that we’ll have together. That it will be fruitful and restful as we prepare for this really big thing we’re doing. AND – I’d love to PRAY FOR YOU, please let me know how I can do that.
2. Encourage – I love the short, sweet, encouraging messages I’ve been getting and I’d love for you to keep those coming. Let me know you’re out there, comment on my blog, send me a text message, comment on a social media post. All of those things may seem insignificant to you, but as I have long days of preparation it means so to me know that I have people out there praying for me and following along with the journey.
3. Give – If you haven’t already, I ask that you prayerfully consider giving to this trip. I can’t get there without supporters like you and I’d love to include you on that level in this journey. I couldn’t have gotten this far without the support that I’ve received financially, and my hope is that my supporters know that they are apart of all that I will do around the world. So again, I ask you to consider giving, no gift is too small and all you have to do is click the link at the top of this page that says “Donate!” Seriously, even something like $5 (one fancy coffee) a month for the next 6 months is $30, and if everyone who read my last blog gave that much, I’d have $1,500 committed to my cause.
With Love,
