It’s been a whirlwind five days since arriving in El Salvador and while a blog about what we’re doing here is in process I wanted to take some time to share with you how I felt about launch and preparations leading up to leaving. When I first talk about the World Race so many people respond with an answer like “I could never do that” and “you’re so brave” I never quite know how to respond, but I can tell you how it feels to take a leap of faith of this size.
Saturday night as I sat in bed at our launch hotel I couldn’t help but think back on everything that had happened to bring me here over the last 8 months. Thank you notes were written, bags were packed (then unpacked, purged and repacked again), my financial affairs were in order and the general business of the life I’m leaving behind was squared away. “So it’s time to jump” I thought. As this has become more and more real I’ve been reminded of my first trip skydiving. Most recently as I stepped on the plane to depart with my team to El Salvador, but first, and most notably, on the eve of my last day of work.
The night before my last day of work I couldn’t get the memory of skydiving out of my brain. I remember being all smiles and anxious excitement from the preparation through the plane ride to the jump point. But when it was time to jump I stepped up to the edge of the plane and froze as I saw the height I was getting ready to dive from. Before I had time to comprehend or to even protest what I was about to do, the tandem guide strapped to my back propelled me forward in to one of the most thrilling and terrifying experiences of my life. Free falling at 120 miles an hour doesn’t feel like falling, it feels like flying and, for me, the best part of the experience was the ethereal feeling of floating to the ground while taking in spectacular views one can only experience from midair.
It’s an interesting metaphor for taking a leap of faith, for how I felt as I quit a comfortable, solid, good job and took a step into the unknown. Up until that day, it had all been a theoretical excitement and anticipation as I waited anxiously for my last day at my corporate job. But that night it felt different, it felt scary, like I stepped up to the side of the plane and looked down at the vast lack of safety below. No familiar routine, no consistent income, no predictability and NO CONTROL. These thoughts were simultaneously freeing and terrifying, but I knew if I didn’t take the step out of the plane I’d never experience the view that can only be seen from midair without a safety net.
That feeling came back again and again over the next month, the fear and anxiety rising up and causing an anxious stomach as I ran errands to prepare or as I packed up the last of my belongings to leave my house behind. My house that I loved and made a safe, beautiful home in over the last 4 years. It showed up at launch as I worshiped and prayed with my team, when I questioned what I was doing and thought about how vastly unqualified I was for what I was preparing to do. It showed up when I hugged my parents goodbye. But the thought persisted, “I’ll never know what it feels like to fly if I never get out of the plane.”
God calls us to scary places all the time, they don’t always look like a mission trip around the world for 11 months, sometimes, it’s just having the courage to be honest with someone even when it hurts. I know over the next 11 months I’ll have many more “edge of the plane” moments, but I’m also believing that I’ll have many, many more moments of flying. Of falling out of a plane and trusting that God will catch me and show me things I could only see when I depend entirely on Him. I don’t think it will ever get easy, choosing to lean on Him in increasing measures, but I’m believing that it will always be worth it if I find the strength to listen. And if I don’t have the strength, Jesus will be that tandem skydive instructor that I’m strapped to pushing me out of the plane and with me the whole time.
We’re just getting into the ministry that we’ve been called to El Salvador to do, I haven’t had to step out yet. The scariest things I’ve encountered have been a bumpy ride from the airport to our ministry and facing down cockroaches in our lodging for the month, but I’m ready to follow where God leads, preparing for times when He asks me to get out of the plane. I ask that you continue on this journey by supporting me financially. I still have a little over $6,000 to raise to be fully funded for the year and my next deadline of September 30th is fast approaching. Please consider giving a gift of any amount (even $5 feeds me FOR THE DAY while we’re here). If you have any questions about how to give please feel free to email me directly.
