The Race + the cost of the Gospel

Currently, I am on a plane to Salt Lake City, Utah. At 5 a.m. this morning I was saying bye to P-Squad in Concord. Last week I was on a plane back to the states from Thailand. 3 months ago I left the Middle East. 5 months ago we arrived into Turkey. 6 months ago I lived in a little village in Albania. 8 months ago we celebrated New Years in Romania. 9 months ago we left Guatemala. 11 months ago we slept in tents for weeks in the woods of Gainesville. 11 months ago we met 29 random people and decided we would be vulnerable with one another, dive deep into community, worship undignified before the Lord, to love each other in the good times and the bad, and to call each other brother and sister for the next 11 months + forever after that. I wish I had some really profound thoughts to share, but in all honesty I am pretty speechless – and quite honestly pretty thoughtless. It is hard to recall moments over the last year right now, only thinking about how difficult it was to say goodbye this morning to my dear friends. But there are some memories that I am quite fond of that I would love to share – they are pretty profound to me and my walk with the Lord over the last 11 months.

I loved that time we were in Art Hostel in Albania and we were getting ready to send off our alumni leaders. We sang and danced and yelled at the top of our lungs, undignified before the Lord and one another. We sat and took communion with one another this night. The flame, that had burned for so long, was relit with a new desire to share the Gospel.

I loved that Turkey was so hard for many of us to leave. A Muslim country that we all fell in love with. It didn’t start with love for many of us, the first look at Turkey left a bitter taste in a lot of our mouths. The spiritual darkness that is over this country was hard at first. But we persisted, we had grace, we loved deeply, we built friendships, we walked through Ramadan with our new friends, we endured the cross set before us, and we cried when we left.

I loved that Romania was dedicated to prayer. A place that we discovered that we can not do anything without the help of the Holy Spirit. So many hours every night were spent in prayer in the mission house. Praying for breakthrough, praying for the local Church, praying for the community, praying for health, praying for one another.

I loved that time we hiked Acatenango. The moment we got to the top and sat up until 1 a.m. watching the eruption of Fuego next door. We sat in awe of the Lord’s creation, like a little kid fascinated with something their father had just done. We displayed the innocence of a child in these moments. I loved that, the simple things in life is what was important to us in this moment.

Most of the time I am still in awe that I get to be the hands and feet of Jesus. What an honor it has been to go out the last 11 months and share the Good News. I am sure there will be many more thoughts and blogs as I walk through what the heck just happened in the last year and all the Lord has done in my life. His love is still a love so unfathomable to me, something that it crazy hard to understand – but I think I am okay with that, I am okay with not understand everything about my God. I will continue to sit in humility and learn at His feet.

The Race change my life in ways I didn’t know was possible. I learned to sit at the feet of Jesus. I learned to love my brothers and sisters. I learned to live with community and be vulnerable. I learned how the global Church operates and how it is vital that we band together with one another to bring the Kingdom to earth. I learned what spiritual disciples are. I learned how to Sabbath well. I learned what it looks like to walk in the will of my Father. I learned how to communicate.

The Race taught me to count the cost and see if the Gospel is worth it – and it is every single time. I learned to lay my preferences aside because the Gospel is worth what food I am about to eat, what my bed feels, what clothes I have worn over and over again, the cold water I am going to wash dirt off my body with, and even the amount of sleep I will get each night.

See you soon