In my last post, I shared with you how I got to have a personal Chinese host family for a week and a half and teach English. We ended up only spending half as much time as we were planning on in that city. The local police claimed we didn’t have the right type of visa to teach English. But God ended up turning this into a blessing.
All 6 of us were deeply blessed by our host families, but our team times were suffering because we were so separated. A huge part of the World Race experience is spending time with our team mates and praying for each other and processing things together. Because we were each staying at different homes, it was very difficult to get team time in.
Leaving early allowed us to take one week and spend intentional time together as a team. This was important because Eric, our team leader left after that week. He was our alumni team leader, traveling with us for the first 3 months, and then handing leadership into our hands.
Saying goodbye to Eric
During that week, I got very sick with something like the flu. The first 3 days especially I was in bed all day. After feeling isolated at my host home and then going right back into isolation due to the flu, I was struggling. Sunday morning, all my teammates went to an international church. Church in China! And I had to miss it because I was too sick.
That morning I was crying out to God, wishing he would just heal me. I suddenly felt him speak to me. Not an audible voice, but a thought entered my head that I knew was not my own. He said, “It hurts me to see you in pain.” The incredible love and compassion of God hit me. I was so miserable, and it was so comforting to know that he cared. That He is with me in the pain. There is one thing that He absolutely guarantees without exception: I am with you always and I understand the pain you are going through.
Now, I can say that I would rather have had that sweet moment with the Lord, than experiencing church in China.
Since then, God’s love has overwhelmed me. Eric said to us once, “We weren’t created to love God; we were created to be loved by God. Everything else is bonus.” We do not have a requirement to love Him. He loves us, and we have a choice to love Him back. The more we experience His incredible love, the more we want to love Him back!
“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians 3:18-19
At the beginning of the Race, I got a key necklace with a prophetic word on it (The person who made it prayed for a word, without knowing anything about me). The word was “Beloved”. I wasn’t sure what that word personally meant to me, but throughout this journey, I have been learning so much deeper about God’s love for me.
