Six months ago I boarded a plane in Houston, TX and began a journey that has led through five countries, thirteen cities/towns/villages, and seven airports. The World Race in many ways has looked very different from how I had envisioned it would be, but for the most part it has been so much better than I could have ever imagined.
Along the way I have had the opportunity to preach a message of grace and forgiveness to a church in an Anglican church in Uganda, the very same week that a man who was caught stealing, was then taken to be mocked and beaten in front of dozens of school children on the front steps of that very same church.
I have had a change of perspective on what worshiping the Lord really means, having the chance to lead others in worship through song, but seeing more and more that worship is so much more than music, style, or personal preference. I've gone from being with a team of six strangers turned live long friends(Andrea,Drew,Emily,Sarah,Sabrina,and Kayla) living in community together, learning about life and faith together, and experiencing three months of east African culture together, now I find myself leading a team of six other women and men(Adrea, Ashley, Cameron, Lacee, Leah, and Melissa) and now finally seeing myself become the leader that God has calling me to be my whole life.
Yesterday I was helping clear out a tapioca field that belonged to one of the neighbors of the family we are staying with here in the small farm village of Kanchanburi, Thailand, and as I was cutting through the trees with a machete, swatting away bees, and finally understanding why the local workers laugh at us when we wear shorts and take our shirts off to work while they wear pants and long sleeves, I found myself thinking about how doing ministry or serving others is not as complicated or as grandiose as we would like it to be, yet at the end of the day God is still working through my life and the lives of those around me and I have been able to see that clearly more and more as time goes on.
