UKRAINE | L'viv

As most of you do know God has taught me a lot about specific prayers and seeing His provision. I am about to tell you a story of my God. As I began a few months ago to write things out that I would need for after the race, I remembered my computer situation. I currently am an owner of a netbook. It has held up in the past year very well, holding my pictures, and enabling me to watch countless movies. But, I knew that it would never be able to handle the design programs that I would need when I got home. So, I began to pray, very specifically. I knew that in order to do any design work for anyone I would need a macbook pro because of its abilities to handle the CS program system which is what I spent four years using and learning to do designs on. I don't want to sound spoiled, but I didn't feel that I needed to spend money on another computer that wasn't up to par and watch it struggle and finally die under the pressure of the design world. So I prayed. I knew that if God wanted me to do design work when I got home, that He would provide the tools I would need to do it.

So with that knowledge I would like you to read my teammate Carly's blog entitled"Free Mac Book Pro". What a wonderful God we serve!

UKRAINE | L'viv

Its all coming to an end. After 11 months I will finally be coming home. I feel numb. I am not sad nor excited, just indifferent. But, as I sit here writing this, if I allow myself to sit and process the people that I have met or the things that I have seen, I feel my throat closing and the tears begin to well up...but I don't allow it. Why? Maybe fear that I won't be able to get it back together? Maybe that the things that I have seen are too difficult to imagine or the people that I have loved that I leave month after month have bigger pieces of me than I am now left with. Its too hard to both imagine the wonderful foods awaiting at home while at the same time knowing that my little boy, Syete, in Rwanda is still going days without eating. My brain can't fit both my comfy bed, and perfectly cooled house and the trash houses that we have seen in Kenya...India...the Philippines and others. How do I justify it? How is it fair? Why do I get to worry about cars, computers, and which cereal to buy this week and they have to worry in Nepal if their kids will make it home alive after crossing the river 14 times to go to school.

As we come closer to leaving, I have begun to fill up my mind with other thoughts. With planning birthdays, and getting to see my family. I have told myself that I don't need to process, that going home will be just as easy as when I came home from college. I mean its home right, where you feel the most like yourself and the most comfortable. But, if I allow myself to simply come home and push down all my feelings about these nations and people what was the point? So I have some good stories to tell? So I can brag every time it is hot, that I have felt hotter? So I can make everyone at home feel bad about all their STUFF?

I want to use these emotions and feelings to foster change. I want my love for these people not to tear myself down emotionally but to fuel me to keep going. I can't go home and be the same person doing the same things because I am not that person anymore. I am not just another American working her way up the food chain. I am a daughter of the King who knows her identity in Christ and the authority God has given me. So I have a duty to follow God's will to make disciples of all nations, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and help the orphan and the widow. Because these aren't just commands that God gives us but people that I have met along my journey. It is Lina...Syete...Bin...Mollity...Gisele. I can't forget because they have pieces of me I can't suppress because I have pieces of them.

I guess I have no real point to this blog, only to speak the thoughts that I have been suppressing and hope that from them comes transformation.

UKRAINE | L'viv

Dear Seth Barnes and the World Race Family,

This is a letter of complaint on my behalf for the past 11 months and how you have progressively been destroying my life and future in this world with forced community, eye-opening experiences, and contact organizations.

Let me explain... Before hearing of the World Race, I was headed to a bright and wonderful future. I was about to graduate and knew that I could easily find a job in my field or start my own business that would be sure to supply enough money for a comfortable life. I was sure to find a husband that had likewise aspirations and settle down to yearly vacations, once a week Sunday services, having some kids, and possibly even a bible study. I enjoyed the frivolties of life like buying clothes, having a nice car, and eating out often. I read the word daily and even gave the due 10% to the church of my bi-monthly checks. My life was easy because I kept the compartments of my life neat and tidy. Friends and family did not mix, School stayed in its box and above all God stayed in his compartment. I easily picked from the needed compartment depending on what the event called for.

Then one day, I was pointed to the World Race website. I found myself intrigued by countless stories of people all around the world and I felt this uncontrollable desire to meet these same people. I tried to suppress these feelings, but your viscious website with all of the blogs kept pulling me in. I began to spend all my free time, reading blogs only feeding the desire to go even more. I couldn't stop it. I soon found myself signed up and heading for LA to launch on the next available trip in September.

Every month was a battle to keep my compartments tidy, and every month you and your organization's policies of feedback and not sitting on your bucket was making my life more and more dirty and destroyed.

I write to you now, after I am able to finally shed light in month 11 on how deeply you have really screwed up my life here on this earth. There is no order anymore, especially with the God compartment, which is actually more of a sea that swallows up all other areas in my life. I now can't function without telling people about Jesus. I can't form sentences that aren't revolved around God. I am no longer able to have an enjoyable day to myself without praying for someone in my head or having a God encounter. My friends, instead of stickin to their own business, now challenge me to be a better person.

I can't function as a normal person, and I have you to thank for that. I now make ridiculous decisions in the eyes of the world based on silly nudges from the Holy Spirit and believe that with God's authority I can pray and people's pains go away and food mulitplies. I now no longer desire the things in this world like a job that pays and only ask for God's will to be done. I have no money, no plans, and no worries, I am NUTS.

My future living the American Dream has been destroyed because of you. I no longer see it necessary to have yearly vacations and a priority to have nice clothes. I now want to adopt kids with having my own, and give away as much as I can instead of using it for myself. Mr. Perfect is now no longer luke-warm, but completely passionate not just about me like I wanted but more so about Jesus.

I have only you to thank for introducing me to the thing that would destroy my life. I only write you to warn yourselves and those like me that if you continue to show others the world around them in this same way that they also will be changed by being completely saturated in the Spirit and desiring God's will above all else and their world's will be likewise destroyed. I hope that you can live with your actions and their effect on those around you for all of eternity. We will all be there in eternity to remind you of the things that you have done.

Sincerely,

A concerned racer.

UKRAINE | L'viv

I recently decided to go through another "read through the Bible in a year" program. My lackadasical reading choices everyday were making my quiet times just as uninspiring and therefore I realized that I needed a tad more structure. So the reading plan takes from four different parts of the Bible, which has been fun to compare things from the Old and New Testaments.

As I was reading yesterday I came across the story from Exodus about Moses coming down from the mountain.

"When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because be had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone..."

Wow! Incredible! Imagine being so deep in the presence of God that your face glows, or more so SHINES. This story became even more real, ironically, after watching a movie called Stardust. After a long ministry day, Bethany and I took advantage of the huge projector and decided to watch a fantasy movie to somewhat escape from the world. In the movie, a girl, that looked like Gwenith Paltrow but wasn't, is a star that fell from the sky. As a star, her job is to shine, but she only shines when she is around this human that she falls in love with. The more she is with him and the closer that he is to her, the brighter she shines.

As I was reading those verses in Exodus I couldn't get the image of her face out of my mind and how brightly it shone, I can only imagine that Moses's face would have shone just as brightly as hers did. I desire this same quality. I want my face to shine the closer I get to God and the more I am in his presence. I hope when people look at me, they don't see me but see the light is shining off of me.

At the end of Stardust, she grabs her love and holds him tightly and as she squeezes him her light gets so bright it is blinding and is able to kill the "bad guy" with the intensity of the light. WOW, do you see the imagery here? The more time we spend with God and the closer we get with him the brighter our light shines and this same light is able to pierce the darkness or kill the "bad guy." No works really needed, just being in His presence.

I pray that I can grow deeper with God, so that my life can shine to bring light to the world but also to pierce the darkness.

Pray that in these last few weeks of the race, I am able to dig deep with my Savior and let my light shine for Him who gave me life!

ROMANIA | Stejaris

As I have already told you, this month we are living in a small Hungarian village. It is absolutely picturesque with the rolling hills and various colors of green patches for crops. On most days we had to leave our little village walking a mile to the closest bus stop and hope that either a small white van (bus) would show or stick our thumbs side ways and pray that a kind stranger would pick us up. But on a few occasions we would get to stay in our humble abode and hang out with our dear neighbors. One of which is Eboya (meaning violet) well I guess Eboya-s seeing as there were three in the household (grandmother, mama, and young girl).

Carly was the one to meet Eboya first. She had gone out to get some much needed lettuce for our homemade tacos after we had already failed in getting it earlier that day. She went again to a different store and found that they had no produce and sadly decided to return home. Upon her departure she ran into the three Eboyas who told her that they had plenty in her garden. So they motioned for her to follow as they walked through the yard and the chicken pin to the garden. They proceeded to pull up lettuce, carrots, onions, and other things that we never got fully translated correctly. Carly, thinking she was going to have to pay for all of these newly found goods, started to tell them that she had plenty but they just kept pulling and putting it in bags. When they had finished, Carly pulled out the money ready to pay but as soon as she did, they all started telling her no, that it would be free. Estactic, Carly thanked, hugged, and kissed all of them as she headed out. But, before she could get out the multiple sets of gates they asked if she wanted a chicken. Carly gladly agreed to the offer and the Eboyas told her to bring herself and the three of us tomorrow for a full Hungarian feast with chicken.

That next night I was able to meet the famous Eboyas. They made us a wonderful meal and then invited us back over for a second night, and then a third night. We also were able to have them come over to our house.

By the time our month was over, the Eboyas had fixed us three meals, provided countless amounts of food, arranged a taxi to our next location, provided paper for printing tickets, and even left us with some Hungarian recipes for us all to try at home!

These once strangers, became our closest friends in our small little village. I pray that God continues to bless them for their giving spirit and that He sends more people to minister to them.

ROMANIA | Tirgu- Mures

As the finance person for our team I am in charge of all the money and keeping track of where it goes and making sure it all adds up correctly. Using my fifth grade addition skills I have been able to do this successfully through the months. This month in Romania is a tough month financially. Being a more western culture prices are more comparable to America and henceforth more expensive than our budget allows. As a team we have constantly been praying about these finances and asking that God provide. Carly and I sat down a few days after being here and started inputting our expenses. At the end of all this, I realized that we had too much money. Shrugging it off as a small mistake with keeping track I righted it with the books and moved on. Two days later I decided to check the finances again, making sure this time I was over conscious about all money things, receipts, and what nots. And again I had too much money, exactly 10 lei over what I should have. I again shrugged it off, until our team worship like 10 minutes later. As I began to pray, God sent this realization to me, that I had not been making a mistake in my money counting but that HE had been multiplying our cash. I know this sounds crazy but it is true. I immediately told my team who was estatic and we began to pray more specifically for free bus rides and on sale groceries. That afternoon Carly and I went to the store and what do you know but got a free bus ride there AND BACK (which never happens). Then, when we were at the store I had a specific list of items that we needed and every single item on the list was on sale, EVERY SINGLE ITEM! CRAZY RIGHT?

God is such a big God and so after seeing him provide in little ways we decided to pray over our finances as a team and individually. With everything together we need a total of $152,802 from everything like Cars, computers, and phones to plane tickets, wisdom teeth pullings, and gas money. I know it sounds like a lot but we all know that God will provide!

ROMANIA | Tirgu Mures

We recently had an opportunity to hang out with the local YWAM staff at their place. They had some visitors come from the states that were staying there and teaching the YWAM stuff some of the things they were implimenting in their ministries including healing conferences and this thing called "The Lift". The Lift is basically a time once a week to gather for prayer, soaking, and worship and just ask for the presence of the Holy Spirit. Last Monday we were invited to their inagural lift session and it was very powerful. During the middle of it as I was speaking with the Father, He gave me this vision of this beautiful valley. It had streams and sheep and green pastures. in the middle of it He was standing there waving me to follow Him into the scenic area. He kept saying "come" over and over again. In my head I was like I am coming. I am walking towards you. But He kept urging me more and more. I was starting to get frustrated, because I knew that I am coming so I didn't understand what the vision was talking about. And then I looked down at my feet to see that I was tip-toeing. Yes I was coming, but I was so worried about the placement of my feet that I didn't realize how slow I was going. God desires for me to RUN to him, not merely tip-toe towards Him. I have been stressing about each step making sure that it was the will of God and God is calling for me to RUN towards Him with arms open wide.

ROMANIA | Tirgu Mures

Today we had the opportunity to talk and sing for some 6th and 7th grade students at a local school. It was such an amazing time just telling these eager to hear students about everything we had been learning throughout the race. Even though it was a public school, they were very open to the truth that God was speaking through us. We spoke of the incredible relationship we have with our Savior and the miracles we have seen him do.

In one of the classes we were telling them about the money we were raising for a village in Nepal that has no school and how interested they were in making a difference like that too. I forgot how kids see the glass as half full. They always seen the potential and none of the negative.

I think about all the lemonade stands I had when I was little, sure that I would make hundreds of dollars from the world's best lemonade or seeing my sister start business after business as a kid from dog treats to cookies knowing without a doubt she would succeed. So where does that go as adults? Where does the switch occur from seeing the glass half-full to seeing it as nearly empty causing us to rethink our actions?

I recently heard from a church member after being asked why the church doesn't support international missions, and the response was "How do we know that the money is going to the right place and not being misused?" PEOPLE, we can't let one strike keep us out of the game. Just as we can't stop talking to people about Christ for fear they will turn you away.

God calls us to have faith like children, because the faith of a child is without fleshly walls that keep us from fully trusting in God. I understand that God has given us a brain to use it, but if we constantly analyze every decision, weighing the pros and cons instead of trusting that God will catch you, then our faith is more practical than biblical.

This month I have been praying for a bold faith, a faith that sees the positive and sees God as bigger than my half-empty glass. I want my life to be like my childhood lemonade stand, knowing that I will succeed and God's plans will prevail because I have the God of the universe on my side.