Here it is March 9th, month SEVEN in Tanzania – can you believe it?! As other racers have put it, it feels like a crazy time warp where the time seems to have flown by yet at the same time the first month of the race feels like it was years ago. I have learned so much, seen so much, and grown so much, and I wake up every day knowing that I am blessed to have been called here and supported by you all. There are days where it feels so hard I just want to break down crying, and other days it feels so surreal I can’t help but laugh out loud with my team. God is moving. In the Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania – God has moved and is moving. Repairing relationships, restoring wholeness, giving new life and new love, healing bodies of illness, moving so strongly in Spirit that we can only stand in awe. Filling us up until we overflow with His love and joy.
I cannot begin to formulate the right words to adequately thank you for what you have given me and continue to give in your support. In the past five and a half months I have seen and experienced things that would not have been possible without you. I wake up thankful that God chose me for this time and this place, I wake up knowing that if I ask it will be given because my time on the Race is a testament to that. It amazes me that in all of our comings and goings God has created our lives to be intertwined in such a way that I am blessed because of you, and you are able to bless others through me. When you are sitting at your desks trying to meet a deadline, I am the voice that you cannot physically be, singing the orphan to sleep. When you are driving in your car on your way to class, I am the feet that walk through busy foreign streets declaring the love of Christ. When you are making dinner for your family, I am the hand that holds the prostitutes and tells her she is worth more. You are there with me. Every word, every step, every touch – you are causation of and a part of my place in the Kingdom right now.
As life as usual settles in around you, as spring begins to poke her sweet face up through the winter ground, know that you are part of something more. Something that God is doing through you and because of you, that God has taken money out of your bank account and turned it into something priceless, something that advances the Kingdom of the Lord as my squad and I move throughout each country. You have taken something the world calls valuable and made it more beautiful than our eyes could ever see.
Thank you for every dollar and cent. Thank you for the sacrifices you have made and are making. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, He graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. I was chosen to explain to everyone the mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning. God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in it’s rich variety to all unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was His eternal plan, which He carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord. Because of Christ and our faith in Him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.” Ephesians 3:8-12
