I know, I know… You haven't heard from me in over a month! Where have I been? Am I still alive!? Well, I'm here to tell you that I've made it here to Malawi… month 11 of 11… with 2 weeks to go before I come home!
I have a pretty EPIC return home schedule. Starting on the 27th I fly from
Lilongwe, Malawi
to
Nairobi, Kenya
to
Bangkok, Thailand
to
Seoul, South Korea
to
Los Angeles, CA
to
Atlanta, GA
to
Charlotte, NC
then finish my 11 month journey to
Hickory, NC
Our journey from Tanzania to Malawi was a stretching one for sure. To spare you the details, we basically spent 48 straight hours on a bus to get to Lilongwe, Malawi. We arrive at 3am at our hostel completely drained. The next morning, I woke up feeling a strong pull to open up a letter my brother gave me before leaving the race. Troy gave me this letter to save and to open when I felt like I really needed it. It was designed to be an encouragement when I needed it the most…. when I wondered, "What in the world am I doing here anymore? Am I really making a difference? This is miserable. Why am I doing this?"
I had been saving the letter for 10 months, imagining I'd just read it on the flight home. But, after that long, tough and grueling ride to Lilongwe, I was asking those very questions to myself. And I realized that the intention of that letter was not so I could "hold on" until the end and read it on the plane ride home. It was intended to lift me up and encourage me DURING the race.
So, that morning I sat down, quieted myself down, said a prayer and began peeling back the seal of the letter. I opened it fully expecting this GRAND, masterfully written, super long and inspiring letter from my brother to tearfully occupy my time for next 3 hours.
Instead, I open to find a peice of folded construction paper… completely blank, nothing written on it. Inside the construction paper was a smaller peice of paper about the size of a business card. I turn the card over… all it has written on it is ONE SENTENCE…
Enough said.
It was a powerful moment for me… one of the biggest I've had on the race. After letting the words sink in a little bit, I gathered myself and "went back to work," I guess you could say. Because it's true, that's the only reason why we put ourselves through this craziness. So that they may know Jesus. I had a month to go and I wasn't going to waste it. I still had work to do. And I had to pick up my cross and continue my journey and finish strong. My team and I have been saying the phrase to each other this whole month: So that they may know Jesus, So that they may know Jesus… just continuing to remind each other of our purpose of being across the world.
Thanks, Troy, for your inspiring words. As few as they were. They were more than enough!
I know I didn't give yall much of a ministry update. But, I promise I'll have another post coming up soon to give yall the update on our ministry in Malawi!
