My race route took a quick twist and I am now sitting in the Tokyo airport awaiting the arrival of my plane back to America where I will begin month four.

First, I want to say THANK YOU to all my supporters. The last three months have been incredible. Each country presented its own unique excitement, challenges, and lessons that will forever impact how I view myself, this world, and the God I am so proud to serve.

All of the financial support I received was used (...and then some, to get me home). I couldn't be more thankful that you allowed God to work through you to give me this life changing experience.

Second, I want everyone to know that my coming home is not due to God not providing for me. It is due to Him providing for me in so many wonderful ways. Yes, it looks different than expected; 3 months overseas as opposed to 11. But God knew the desires of my heart before I even knew them. My financial status definitely pushed me into a time of prayer and questioning. During that time, God quickly changed my question from "Why have my funds for the rest of the race not been coming in?" to "God you know better than I do, let your will be done."

As I began praying for God's will to be done, I felt like He was asking me to really search the desires of my heart and asking me to be vulnerable with myself and with Him. When I began this process, I quickly started to realize that as much as I was enjoying myself on the race... I really did long to be doing ministry somewhere more long term where I could really invest and to not be moving through all of these experiences at such a quick rate. It hurts to give your heart to people and places and then leave. I don't think it is a bad thing at all it's just a hard thing. It has definitely taught me to cling to God.

At this point I wasn't o.k. with putting those desires before God because I didn't think it was the right prayer. I didn't know if I could trust my own desires because I know my nature. But in so many different ways God kept speaking, "be vulnerable, I want to give you the desires of your heart." Eventually, I was able to put those desires before God without shame, knowing that He longs for his children to be completely vulnerable with Him because He wants to give them the desires of their heart.

 I'm learning what it means to follow my heart.

I'm learning that God loves who I am and He did not make mistakes in creating me.

He is far more concerned with who we are than where we are.

Coming home is definitely not easy but it really is what I want; it happened a lot faster and very differently than I expected. I already miss my team and squad; they have definitely become family to me. I can't thank God enough for letting me spend the past three months with them. But family is family no matter where you are. So I don't consider this an ending for us... just the beginning of a new chapter. I cannot wait to find new ways to encourage and support them.

I have no doubt that God is opening doors for me at home. I'm so excited to see everyone, to process through everything I just experienced, and so excited to see what He has for me next!!!

Psalm 16:5-6

"Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.''

When we first arrived at our ministry in a Malaysia, the pastor at the church we were staying at invited us to a prayer meeting with all the community pastors. After the meeting they treated us to a very popular Malaysian breakfast.  During the meal I started asking the pastor who was sitting next to me a bunch of questions about his faith. I found out that he grew up in the Muslim faith and was curious about how he met God and stepped out of his family's faith.

This is what he told me:

"When I was 21 years old, my cousin got saved and I was her first target. She was determined to convert me. She talked to me about God all the time. I loved debating with her and I was very good at it. I started finding pleasure in being able to stump her in our religious talks.

Eventually she got discouraged and she called out to God and said,

 I don't know what to do?

She heard God clearly say, STOP TALKING TO HIM ABOUT ME AND START TALKING TO ME ABOUT HIM.

So she completely stopped trying to win me over with her words and trying to convince me to believe in God. She began a 40 day fast to seek Him on my behalf.

Meanwhile, I was still doing research and finding joy in becoming knowledgeable about my religion. But one day while I was doing this, something just came over me. Suddenly none of the stuff I had been researching made sense and it definitely didn't feel real. Although I could win an argument with my cousin, I started reflecting on all our conversations and realizing that the God she served seemed so much more real and relational. It all happened very fast. I found myself on my knees asking God to come into my life.

I called my cousin to tell her and found out that she was on day 20 of a 40 day fast for me. God definitely heard her prayers and definitely changed my life forever."

It is so easy to think that we must have the right thing to say or know exactly how to act to show people that our God is who He is.

But the truth is, OUR GOD IS WHO HE IS NO MATTER WHAT WE DO.

He just wants us to talk to Him.

I am in country number 3! MALAYSIA J!!!!!!!!!!!

I love it here. It is absolutely beautiful! On the bus ride, I kept saying to myself "I can't believe this is my life right now."

The mountains were huge, the water was sparkling, I was on a bus with a back pack almost as big as me, and 11 other girls who were complete strangers to me just 5 months ago.

I kind of laughed at myself and was like,  "yeah...This is the way I live!" J

Time has been so weird on this trip. Sometimes I feel like its flying but then there are times that I feel like it's going by so slow. I never really know what day it is. There are not really any seasons. It's just different. But it's good.

I knew I had been in Asia quite a while when I finally reached a Starbucks, ordered a Grande latte', and couldn't believe how big it was.

When we got settled and started to meet the people we would be working with. It was confirmed that I LOVE Malaysia. The people here are INCREDIBLE. Everyone wants to be my friend, maybe it's because I'm white, but I still love it. Most of them speak English. And well they are just awesome... the kind of people I would like to be around all the time.

 

So... so far this month has been great! 

Thank you for all of your support and prayers! I have more stories coming...

So just a couple of weeks ago I was telling my team that no one has ever successfully surprised me because... well I am just usually really good at figuring things out....

But near the end of the week of debrief we had a squad dinner. Matthew and I were able to work out an awesome deal with an amazing restaurant that would have usually been well out of our budget. Everyone was in high spirits, enjoying the meal, the company, and the service.

Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like everything is against you, nothing goes as planned, and when you think it's about to get better it only gets worse?

What about one of those weeks?

Months?

Years?

I think we all experience such seasons. I'm a summer girl, so I like to refer to those times as never ending winters. Bitter cold seasons where you can't seem to get warm, times where you can only imagine what it would feel like to be able to remove all the extra layers of clothes you have been hiding under in attempt to keep warm, times you close your eyes and try to remember what spring even looks like.

That may sound a little dramatic but if we are honest.... I think we have all been in places where we just can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

That's where I was coming out of Cambodia.

It was a rough and challenging month and there were many times I had to close my eyes and remind myself that it was only a season and that spring would come. I knew God was trying to do something in me and that if I could just endure the winter, spring would be so much sweeter than it ever had been. I expected to walk into my week of debrief finally feeling the warmth and seeing the flowers bloom.

But it wasn't like that... instead it was a time of applying the hard lessons God had been teaching me all month. My partner Matthew and I are in charge of the logistics for our squad. I was so excited to go ahead of the squad and prepare a week of what world racers would consider luxury. I couldn't wait to bless them with a much needed week of fun and rest.

When I arrived and sat down to have a meeting with Matthew and my squad leaders, I realized my computer was no longer in my back pack. I tried to think back and remember where I had left it to decide who could have taken it. Most likely it was taken on the bus on my way to debrief.

 This was my only form of communication with home. But surprisingly my first thought wasn't anger or even frustration...

 my first thought was "God, You are more than enough."

 I was kind of shocked at my own reaction but I kept thinking back to the tree house that I had just spent a month in. I kept thinking about how God had been shouting the words "I am all you need, everything else is an extra!" over and over to me all month.

So I was kind of excited, I was starting to get it. I mean a computer is a pretty big deal right? And I was able to hold on to it loosely, to consider it an extra.

The next night, I woke up around 2am... feeling extremely nauseous. I layed in bed, knowing I only had four more hours to sleep and a very busy day ahead of me. I asked God to stop the pain and to settle my stomach but before I knew it, I was sitting on the bathroom floor hugging the toilet. What in the world?

I cried out, "God, what's wrong with me? I feel like I am doing everything right and everything keeps going wrong? I had a good attitude about my month, about my computer... I looked to You, knowing You were more than enough, trusting that You had my best interest at heart. So why God? Why am I sick? When will spring come?"

But I kept being taken back to the tree house, I kept hearing God say, "I am more than enough, everything else is an extra."

Does that apply to health too?

At this point I had thrown up everything in my stomach and couldn't stop gagging (sorry for being graphic). I felt like my insides were being ripped out, I was dizzy, dehydrated, and so tired. I couldn't lie down because it made me more nauseous and I no longer had the energy to go back and forth from my bed to the bathroom. So I sat there hugging the toilet and begging God to take the pain away. But as I began crying out to Him my prayers were not coming out like I expected them to.

 The lesson He had been teaching me suddenly became so clear. My health is an extra, a blessing from Him. Just like the computer, it is a gift. It is not something I can depend on, not something I should take for granted, not something that can't be taken from me with the blink of an eye. The one and only thing that I can truly depend on is God and the beautiful thing about that is He is more than enough. He really is!

I was so tired, weary, and weak. But in my weakest moment, I was able to cry out to God and thank Him for being more enough and thank Him for all the extras that never seemed like extras before. I said, "God thank you for the toilet I'm hugging right now.... It could have been a squatty potty, God thank you for the bed that I will get to rest in when this is over, thank you for the doctor that is just down the street, thank you for my roommate who wants to help me, for the friends that keep checking on me, thank you for clean water....."

I felt miserable but at the same time I felt so incredibly blessed. I was suddenly able to see all these things that were expectations just two months early as gifts from God.

You are probably expecting me to say... and then.... I was suddenly healed!

well I wasn't.

 But I was o.k.

 I still had more than enough.

 

 

 

My last week at our ministry in Cambodia has been a week to remember. We have gotten pretty good at coming up with ways to fill our free time: lots of long walks, climbing the same mountain four times (every time at a different time of day...so the sky would be different), card games, hand washing clothes, lap top movie nights, competitions to see how many times we could make a volleyball bounce (wasn't in on that one but it was entertaining to watch), guitar lessons, lots of hammock swinging and book reading, cows having babies, pigs being slaughtered, late night talks, and star gazing.

OH THE STARS IN CAMBODIA... That is definitely what I will miss the most. They are so close and so bright. I feel like I can't go to sleep while they're still out...which has made me quite the night owl this month.

The last two days with the boys at teen challenge were definitely the highlight of my time with them. Bonnie and I went to teach our last English class but decided to take them swimming instead (there is this swimming hole across from the center they go to). The director came up and asked me if we really wanted to take them swimming (at least that's what I think he asked) and I said yes. He said a bunch of other things I did not understand and the next thing I knew we were all piled in a van for a field trip. Surprise! We had no idea where we were going. They took us to a sweet bridge you can jump off of into the water. The guys were so excited. Bonnie and I were just going to take pictures and hang out (Everyone told us to be careful about getting in the water.....because well its brown and they don't want us to get any infections). But it was a really high jump and they were making it look ridiculously fun so we caved and decided to take the risk and I'm so glad we did. It was even more fun than it looked! I loved getting to see them just hanging out. The communication barrier didn't matter so much when we were just counting to three to jump, laughing, pushing each other off, and helping each other out. Their personalities were coming out more than ever. I wish we could have spent more time like that with them.

I hope our time with them will be something they remember. Communicating was definitely a challenge for us but we did the best we could (I think we will learn to get more creative as we go). I was sad to say goodbye to them...they were a fun group. There is so much potential in all them, pray that God will help them work through their addictions and stay focused on Him. Their eagerness to learn amazes me...if they continue to channel that in the right direction they will do great things!

So our CamBOREDia adventure almost ended very smoothly.....until we decided to take a last day trip on the motor bikes to see a temple. We managed to decide on three people who could drive (or so we thought) and put two people on two of the bikes and three on the other (this is the one I was on). After careful instructions on how to drive and a few stall outs we were on the road. Not even two minutes into the trip it started raining. About five minutes into it, it started pouring. But being the world racers we are.... We were not going to let a little rain stop us. We turned onto the dirt road (which was a mud road at this point), hit a rock...started swerving... tried to turn the wheel... lost control.... had about three seconds to brace ourselves for what was about to happen... and we were down! Fortunately, we were all ok. I ended up with a muffler burn and some pretty intense bruising but other than that we were just a little shaken up. We got the bike up and found out by someone passing by that we weren't allowed to tour the temple when it was raining (REALLY?). We were covered in mud pushing the bikes back down the dirt road in the rain, saying "Get us out of here!" It was kind of the last straw for everyone... but we managed to get the bikes off the dirt road and slowly ride them back to the tree house. And we even managed to laugh about all of it as we were packing our bags to leave.

I never took the opportunity to wrap up my experience in the Philippines so before I sum up my last week of ministry in Cambodia I thought all of you might like to hear about a little about Cedric and Donna Lynn. Sweet Cedric was released from the hospital during our last week. We have tried to keep in touch with some of our friends from the children's home to stay updated on his status. Right now he is doing great. He is starting to show expression and personality.

The last picture I saw of him, he was smiling. Please keep praying that God will keep him healthy and continue to surround him with people who love him. Right before we left, Bonnie and Marlena went to the hospital with a lady who was going in labor and one of the Doctors looked at them and said "are you the Americans who were taking shifts to take care of the baby over in the children's ward?" They told him they were part of the group and came back and shared this with the rest of us. It's amazing how many people were watching us and we had no idea. This was an entirely different part of the hospital. I think God used our time with baby Cedric in more ways than we know.

 

I have also been able to stay in contact with Donna Lynn. Saying goodbye to her crushed me even more than I anticipated. But I can't thank God enough for letting me be a part of her life. After getting to spend the month with her, hearing heart, sharing mine, and growing together in our relationship with Christ I had the opportunity to baptize her alongside my teammate Adam.

"You are my strength when I am weak, You are the treasure that I seek, You are my all in all."

"All I have in You is More than enough."

These words probably sound familiar to many of you. In fact many of you sing words like this every Sunday morning or listen to songs like this on the way to work. But what do these words really mean?

 Is God our all in all?

 Is He the strength we call on when we're weak?

The treasure that we seek?

 Is He really more than enough?

I'd like to think so...... but my life and mindset definitely don't demonstrate that. In fact my actions and thought process could better be described with words like....

You are great but I need more

Nice things and human relationships is what I seek.

You are my strength when I don't have the option to depend on someone else.

I can't even begin to put into words all that God has done in my heart this week. But I am finally learning the meaning behind those worship songs that I have been singing all my life. I thought I was dependent on God. I thought He was more than enough for me. But as soon as I found myself in a situation without all the things that I have become accustomed to, I wasn't happy.

Was God still there?

 Yes, of course He was.

 But He wasn't more than enough for me.

 He wasn't even close to enough for me.

I had a whole check list of things I still needed before I was going to be happy.

You see, I had prepared myself to be without a bed, a hot shower, and the best food but I didn't prepare myself to be without communication, without people, the ability to build relationships, or without activities to keep me occupied. I didn't prepare myself to be left alone with my thoughts. I don't think I even knew what that meant. I have always had to sneak away to be alone. I've never just been left there without a choice. So after about three days of being stranded in what I had then very maturely nicknamed CamBOREDia my mind started wondering all over the place. Those words "you are more than enough for me" kept running through my mind and I wanted to believe them but I didn't.

I wasn't O.K. just sitting there with God all day... just me and Him.

 I wasn't O.K. with me.

 I needed other people around.

Things from my past started popping up left and right. I was starting to see so many of my insecurities that I had blocked out...because "I'm not insecure, I'm confident, I know who I am"......or at least that is what I have always told myself and I've always had other people around me confirming that. I loved looking like I had it all together; I loved people coming to me for advice because it made me feel like I had it all together.

After fighting these thoughts and complaining about this place for about a week, I finally caved. I said, "God, all right. Let's deal with this. I know you brought me for a reason."So I began to ask him to take my regrets, my insecurities....and then I got really brave and began to ask Him to start revealing anything else I had been avoiding."

Be careful what you ask for!

 I am not going to walk you through the whole process but I will tell it has been brutal. I will tell you that there are still things that I am dealing with and that I don't have it all together and that I will never have it all together. But I will also tell you....

 it is so FREEING to accept that and be o.k. with it,

to stop lying to myself,

to not have anything to hide,

to not depend on other people to confirm who I am.

I cannot even imagine how much better I will be able to love people when I am not depending on them for my happiness, how much more grace will I be able to show them when I am not placing unrealistic expectations on them, or how much more vulnerable will I be when I am not depending on them to tell me who I am. It's crazy for me to think about how much I depend on my family, friends, and even the people I minister to for my happiness and fulfillment. It is so unfair and so unrealistic. No human is ever going to be able to give me everything I need.... they are human. The truth is that we will always let each other down at some point and if I depend on people for my happiness....when they do let me down, I won't be able to show them grace because I will feel robbed. If I think I need them, I won't ever be able to see them as the gift from God that they are.

When He is truly more than enough....It won't matter where I am, who I am with, or how much is taken from me because He will always be there. I am only beginning to grasp this. I am beginning to see everything else as extra. And oh how many extras God has given me! But I am finally singing these words and really understanding what they mean. I am finally loving people for them and not how they make me feel. The way they make me feel may be awesome....but it is an extra, a gift, a blessing.....not an expectation.

It's crazy how fast my attitude has changed about this place. The last couple of days have been so relaxing and so appreciated. I have found so much joy in being here....yes I said it...I like CamBOREDia now. In fact I think I am actually going to miss it. But I'm not so worried about where I will be next, or where I will be three months from now.....God really is more than enough and I will really be ok wherever. I can't promise I won't complain again or that I won't need to be reminded of this in the future (or maybe even in a week).... But our God is so gracious and so patient. HE IS MORE THAN ENOUGH FOR ME.

Alright sorry you have not heard from me in so long. Here is the deal...

After arriving in Cambodia, my team was picked up from the airport by someone with Teen Challenge. Teen Challenge is the ministry we are working with this month. It is a yearlong Christian rehab program for teenagers with drug and alcohol addictions. We were told....or maybe we just assumed that the program was located in the same city that the airport was in (which is supposedly a big city with access to just about anything we would need).......WRONG! We asked the man who picked us up, how long the drive would be and he said two hours. Hmmm, clue number one.

The drive was long and bumpy. The roads were all flooded, so it was like we were driving through a creek for two hours...with really huge rocks at the bottom of it. We were making bets on who would be the first to get car sick. When we finally reached our destination we all crawled out of the van stretching and trying to adjust all our dislocated joints (slight exaggeration...but the ride was pretty rough). I looked around and saw a mountain behind me and flat land and dirt roads for as long as I could see in every other direction. There was one building on the land in front of us...which of course was Teen challenge. After we walked around and had lunch (which they had prepared for us before we arrived), we were taken to the place where we would be staying. It is not even a half a mile down the road from Teen Challenge.

The best way I can describe the place we are staying is to call it a tree house (which is kind of cool...reminds me of Swiss family Robinsons). It is not really in a tree but it just has that kind of feel. All six of us are staying in one empty room, where they rolled out wicker mats for us to sleep on, and hung mosquito nets for us to sleep under. So it is going to be a slumber party for the next three weeks. There is no running water or electricity. They have huge pots full of rain water sitting around the living quarters (this is where we will be bathing and washing our clothes). They cook all their food over fires and eat rice for EVERY meal. This is definitely not anything we are accustomed to but it's so clear to see that they are going out of their way to give us the best accommodations they can. The first night they made dinner and watched us eat (I'm not sure why they didn't eat with us). But we get to sit on the table to eat, which makes eating 10x more fun. 

There is a small preschool right below us, so we are woken up by children screaming "hello" each morning. "Hello" is the only English word that most people here know. The language barrier has probably been the hardest thing for me to deal with. I can take baths in pots and use a head light to read at night but not being able to communicate with anyone has made me feel super useless. Communicating and building relationships are what I'm good at, it's who I am....but no one here understands me.

We were all stranded in our tree house for the first couple of days (the director...and the only one that speaks English... was sick), not really knowing what to do with ourselves. The days were long and hot and we wandered if the director might not ever show up... what we would do all month. Fortunately, he did show up and we all got assigned a class or two a day to teach. I am teaching English, Art, and Bible. I don't really consider myself a teacher and expected to really struggle with it since the boys don't know English but it has been surprisingly fun. They don't speak English but they still have a sense of humor and a crazy desire to learn whatever we are willing to teach them. I think I laughed for two hours straight in my last English class. At one point, I was teaching them how to say "see you later" and I kept walking out the door as I was saying it in attempt to demonstrate the meaning.... And they would all yell "No." It took about ten tries before they understood that I wasn't leaving and that I was trying to show them how to use the phrase. It was hilarious. Then I was trying to teach one of the boys how to say "pink" and I felt like I was saying it so clear but when he would repeat it, it sounded nothing like "pink." I didn't realize that I was getting louder and louder until the whole class busted out in laughter as we were shouting "pink" back and forth at each other. He still doesn't say "pink" right but at least we got a good laugh out of it..... and I'm pretty sure we successfully learned quite a few words. So teaching is entertaining to say the least. But unfortunately that only consumes about two to three hours of my day.

 

I think God has been telling me to slow down for quite a while and now He has done for me what I refused to do for myself. I am forced to slow down this month. It's time to really learn what it means to rest in Him and it's time to process through my feelings. I can't remember the last time I didn't have to set an alarm when I went to bed, could sit down and read a whole book, or could go on a walk and not have anything to get back for. Some days I wish life was more like this all the time and other days I have no idea what to do with myself and want nothing more than to buy a plane ticket home. But I know I'm here because God put me here. I would like to think God has a really good sense of humor and has been cracking up at my team's bipolar mood swings. One day is up and the next is down...never the same for everyone of course. So one month seems pretty long and eleven is looking really long.... but we are in this together and we are in this with Him. So right now we are doing all we know to do...... giving our two to three hours of teaching all we have, getting to know each other, and LEARNING TO DEPEND ON GOD AS OUR COMFORT!