We’ve made it to our second country: Nicaragua! It’s hard to believe we are already on our second month of the race.
We arrived here on February 4th and spent the first week of our time in Nicaragua at debrief – processing life on the race with our leadership team, our squad mates and our Heavenly Father. We spent time in prayer, worship and had sessions each day to fill us back up after our first official month as world racers.
For me, debrief was a turning point. Our leadership team met us where we were at but also challenged us to grow past the brokenness of who we are. We spent time talking about what it means to really be vulnerable with people, what it means to really walk into who you are intended to be, and speaking out about the sin and brokenness we are ready to rid ourselves of.
It’s taken me a long time to be okay with who I am, to feel comfortable in my own skin and to love myself for who Jesus created me to be. Over the last year, the Lord has been doing a work in my heart in regard to all of that – but at debrief I realized I need to be willing to go deeper, to dig further down into the depths of the ugliness and messiness of my human heart.
In 11 months, I don’t want to come back the same person; as much as I love who I am I cannot remain oblivious to the fact that God isn’t done. (Philippians 1:6 even says so.) The thing is, in order for me to come back changed I have to press into the really hard stuff – the stuff I don’t like talking about and the stuff I’ve suppressed for far too long. I’ve started this process but it’s hard, it’s messy and it’s emotionally exhausting.
I’ve opened up to my squad in ways I haven’t opened up to anyone in a very long time. I’ve had one on one’s with my squad leaders about who I used to be and how the choices of my past affect who I am today. I’ve opened up to my team about what I have committed to do in order to dig through what I need to dig through.
But it’s hard, really hard; and emotionally draining. My whole life I’ve avoided the hard things because I wasn’t willing to work for them, I wasn’t willing to pay the price. I remained half-hearted in a lot of ways because of this. But I’m done, I’m done being half-hearted and complacent. I’m ready to dig into the messiness and uncover the entirety of who my Father wants me to be.
My squad leader Larisa, who is ridiculously awesome, knew I was struggling with this took time to speak life into my struggle:
“Vic, if you really want to be a woman of peace you first have to become a woman of war. Biblically, especially in the old testament, when people wanted something they had to fight for it. The battles were ugly and messy but they had to fight for what they wanted. And the same goes for you, you have to go to battle in order to get what you want. If you want peace, you have to go to war.”
Even though that conversation was almost a month ago, it still remains fresh in my mind. So this is to me, becoming a woman of war, becoming a woman who is willing to fight for what she wants, who will no longer stand on the sidelines but who will go to battle.
Phew, now that that’s out of the way … a little bit of an update about where we are and what our plans are for this month.
Our very first adventure day! We went on a boat tour of Lake Nicaragua, we stopped at monkey island and spent the afternoon at Rock Island. A much needed getaway.
We are currently in Chinandega, Nicaragua working with a ministry called Vision Nicaragua. They focus on village outreach in a number of different ways and also have a medical clinic on their compound.
So far, I’m loving all squad month and I’m excited to be with everyone for the three weeks.
Travel day to our ministry host! Thirty-six people and all our packs stuffed into an old school bus, or as they call them here “chicken buses.”
I’ve uploaded a few pictures for you all to see! Tomorrow we will be hiking to the mouth of a volcano tomorrow and sledding down when we’re done; pictures to come!!
Love you all so much.
