Here are the seven countries that I have been to so far and a little bit about what I did while I was there.
India
Our stay in India was as a whole squad which meant that all 55 of us were together. We were located in North East India at a place called Manipur, a region that looks nothing like you would imagine India to appear. We did many different things while we were in Manipur that included helping with construction at the local hospital, our team worked here a lot because we were apparently the hardest working team. We also helped or put on vacation bible schools. Our team put on two vacation bible schools that had over 100 kids each. One day that really stood out to me was when we went out to a outcast community for a medical camp. This community were considered outcasts, mainly because they decided to follow Jesus and there homes/communities would no longer exempt them. We were told that this is the villages only medical access for a year. I took peoples blood pressure ( I knew my EMT training would be useful one day) and took over 85 peoples blood pressure. We did a lot of other things as well in India, but these are the main things we did.
Nepal
Nepal was our official whole squad month, so once again all 53 of us (two people decided to go home) were living together and going to ministry together. We stay in Katmandu for the month and that month was filled with prayer and evangelism. We would go to many different temples and worship and pray to the one true God. We would pray the these temples would be torn down and that false idols would no longer be worshiped. I also had the chance to evangelizes many times throughout the month. the most memorable moment I had is when I got to talk to a pimp about God, Jesus and Holy Spirit, and have him ask me how he could have them be part of his life. Although this man didn’t except Christ that day, I know that is close to finding the truth in his life that he is seeking for. Every week we also got to play and feed some local “street kids” these kids didn’t have a home, and often times either didn’t have or didn’t know there parents. These kids live really hard lives and it was a lot of fun being able to let these kids be kids.
South Africa
This was the first month that my first team, Water Fetchers, were by ourselves. We stayed about 40 minutes outside of Cape Town in a place called Sommerset West. We partnered up with a wonderful Church called Life Church. We did many things with Life Church that varied from organizing donations, to helping out with kids. I really enjoyed going to a drug rehab center that the church help start. I really enjoyed getting to know the men and women there and see how there journey with God was going. We also got to be part of a gap year program there that would go into local schools and teach the kids about Christ. It was an awesome opportunity to minister with the kids, but being able to show the Gap year students how to live a life for God was also just as big of a blessing.
Swaziland
This month all nine men on the squad were put on the same team for what The World Race likes to call Manistry Month. We stayed at place called Project Canaan. Project Canaan is a farm as well as a children’s home that has 98 kids all under the age of 5. A children’s home is very similar to an orphanage, but these kids will never be adopted because adoption is illegal in Swaziland. This farm employs around 200 people from the local community. We were told that for every person that is employed at Project Canaan, 14 people benefit from there salary. This month was a lot of hard labor around the farm, which ranged from sorting picked beans to working at the dairy, and working at the wood shop to painting houses. I mainly worked at the wood shop all month helping put together 40 beds for the toddler home they were building.
Mozambique
This month I was put on a new team, called the tribe. We stayed at the ladies house who is from Texas who started a ministry in Mozambique called Beacon of Hope. She would take in teenage boys and help give them a Christian education so that way they could get hired somewhere after the program. To be honest, I didn’t do a whole lot this month because I got malaria, so I was asleep the majority of the time, or I was laying in bed.
Lithuania
Originally, I was suppose to be in Latvia for this month, but The World Race didn’t have a place to send our team there so we went to Lithuania instead. We stayed in this wonderful city called Klapidia, and stayed with a church called City Church. We once again did many different things this month. We helped plan events for the high school age youth group and young adults. We got to know the high school kids quite well and got to share with them about our faith and how important it is to us. I also got to take part in the worship band this month. This was quite nerve racking for me since it was my first time playing in a worship band, and it did’t help that we played in front of 300 people. Tyler, a teammate of mine who also played with the worship band, and I really got to be able to talk to the worship band about what worship was truly all about.
Estonia
This month we are working at a mens rehab center fro drugs and alcohol. We have only been here a week so this is just a portion of what most likely went on during the month. Our team is here to help in anyway we can to bless this ministry site. I have already started making some relationships with some incredible men here. Mart who founded this place told me something that I thought was amazing. he said “ A lot of these men become pastors and teachers in the church. You know Jesus tells us to leave everything to follow him, these men want to leave everything because everything they have is bad.” These men are doing everything they can to leave there past behind them and start a new wonderful relationship with Jesus, and it has already been such a blessing to be able to see that process happen.
