“Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business’…Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say ‘If it is the Lord’s Will, we will live and do this or that.’” – James 4

 

This stuck out to me at my college Bible study back when I was telling everyone about the 11 countries I was going to after I graduated. I thought, maybe God wants me to talk less and think less about my future plans. Well, I didn’t really learn that lesson until my plans fell through.

 

Never could I or anyone have guessed how things would have went down this year. I learned that my confidence cannot be placed in plans anymore. We do not know nor do we have control over what will happen.

 

There has been a lot of disappointment this year. But I found and heard, right when I needed to, from the movie I Still Believe, that “Fullness isn’t inspite of disappointment. Fullness is because of disappointment.”

 

 

Rivers in the desert 

Anyone remember how I had that great desire wash over me in Malaysia of working a summer in Lake Powell? Like so strong I almost wished I could do it this summer instead of wait until the Race is over?

     Well due to Corona, I had the chance to do so. 

(Cool enough I will end up spending almost exactly 40 days in the desert!)

 

It felt brave and scary. I came looking to do and take away certain things. I felt like God was saying if you go there and touch one person’s life for the cause of Christ, it was worth it. 

 

But I had a weird feeling leading up to it that it wouldn’t work out fully, so much so I would put a balancing statement when I talked about it with anyone (maybe I was just learning the James 4 concept).

 

Only having my new car, Ruach (wind and breathe/Spirit of God that brings life to all things in Hebrew) with me. I write this as I feel that strong wind touching all things around me on the porch of our Utah cabin that holds layers of memories of childhood. 

 

 

Stay until it’s time

God highlighted an area and drew me back later on in the day (note to self-like that fireplace moment in college). 

You know that area outside of Uncle Arth’s abandoned trailer in the burnt forest? Well there.  

I got out of my car and just kept on walking down the path that drew me, waiting to see why God brought me there.  

For a second I thought maybe he’s just showing me, sometimes we’ll wait and get nothing from where we thought we we’re led.  

I sat down where I felt led. 

Ate a granola bar, finished my gatorade with my Bible in hand. Waiting, waiting, looking around the ground to find an arrow head. Instead, I found what I heard.  

Like that beautiful alien bug noise on the hike with Roger in Malaysia, out of the silence of the wind comes a ringing insect noise surrounding me.

Like that of a locus community. The noise travels from my right to a far tree on the left. I have found the noise nowhere else than that specific spot in that specific moment. 

And I just know that’s why God brought me there.  

To see the beauty of a community that calls to each other. You see even in the desert for the smallest of beings God made intimacy. No one else may know they are there. But they are there to glorify and praise God. 

I had to stop at the new water overflow on the way back. The reflections on the shallow, swampy desert water called me over. There lies small little communities of tadpoles just getting the chance at life. I walk over to another corner, and a frog jumps away. Where there once was only a shadow of life, God brought rivers in the desert that now stream with new life (You Always Restore – Upper Room). 

I can see that all is restored in the Kingdom. 

I chose silence and solitude unlike ever before since I had craved independence so badly being in what felt like constant community since I graduated. Both fear and breakthrough in a solo, monastic-like time; there is no end to the depth we can go in knowing God and His Word which is love and freedom for us.

Yet never have I realized more that I was not made to be alone nor to escape from the world, though so much seems to come from occasionally withdrawing like Jesus did. 

It made me want my sharpening brothers and sisters of the Kingdom back more than anything. I need them to walk this walk. 

My weeks in the desert I found even more than that.

I found character and perseverance and empathy for those made in God’s image who work tireless hours with resilience that I couldn’t even understand coming from privilege (overtime cleaning houseboats in the heat). I dwelled on our need for a Savior from our sin thinking of the lethal things us humans do like gossip and am trying to learn to listen more. 

I learned that Christ is transforming me and my responses to trials. I learned He just wants to be with me (taking a break from digital dependence is really helpful) and show me his specific love and give me wonder with the most incredible sunset or lightning strike. 

I don’t even have to try to make a difference for Him. He makes it happen when I remain (even if I wanted to quit my job on my 15 hour day #2)…

-like the prayer answered for one Christian to work there….we poured out our testimonies, and she hungered for me to pour out all these stories welling up in me about the Holy Spirit that I just wait to find a stomach for 

-like spontaneously worshipping under the stars with the one God highlighted, who shared her story and soaked in for the first time parables like the prodigal son or lost sheep, and feeling like I wanted to give her a Bible and then my friend saying she just got an extra from a Muslim to give out!

-like randomly getting Wi-Fi at a spot where I ended up sharing about what Christ did for us to a couple of senior in high school fisherman who sparked a conversation with me

-like cliff jumping at golden hour and ending the night under the stars in deep spiritual conversation with a guy from a Mormon background

-like having an hour long apologetic conversation over the phone with an atheist, if His power that created these galaxies lives in us, than through Christ we can absolutely handle, even if we don’t know the answer, every objection anyone throws at us 

-like understanding more the Mormon climate, both positive and negative sides of it, and attempting to testify to those very hostile to religion the more relationship and love based faith that is true Christianity 

-like my Muslim friend straight up singing Oceans for me over the phone one night, because she just loves that song so much 

-like this moment with a worker at Lake Powell I journaled: A 26 year old sits inside at a table alone as the youthlings commune together outside and socialize….His black body overflows his chair and with a little slump in body language, some might think he doesn’t want to be talked to. Usually in this place, a greeting whenever you walk by someone. For him, he doesn’t even look up. So my mind, my Holy Spirit, Christ-like mind raced for how I could say hi, and then I thought, I literally do NOT have to go to my room to eat in solitude, but I could sit at one of the 5 open seats next to him. I told him about my missions trip, and he shared it was his birthday. In him I saw a protective-like shepherd who pauses with strong sadness, but speaks with sweet hope in his eyes and smile. God did not want him go unrecognized on his bday 

I thought I might be here for months; it ended up much shorter. But God showed faithful. 

Thank you for the wonderous desert where Your magnitude is witnessed. Thank you for reminding me of my history and blessed family. May I give my life away as you so graciously gave yours.

My refuge, my strength, my streams of living water in parched and dry and barren places, my Sustainer with your divine hand on me, I put this white delicate flower I found in the desert in my place of revelry, the Bible. 

And I carry it with me

 

(More journal entries in the desert and a video coming later) 

 

Future Plans

I went 360 degrees since coming home in my desire to continue with the Race. 
 

I still have the desire to invest in a long-term thing/place/community like in Colorado with my amazing family, but I see now that I might just need to surrender that so I won’t miss the opportunity to do more of what I feel I was made for. I recalled how in Indonesia, I felt at the center of my gifts to connect, spread the light and love of Christ, adventure, and storytell in creativity. 

 

We were presented with a lot of opportunities to use the money we have left in our account (minus the emergency flights and pre-bought expenses). 

 

During quarantine in Colorado and Lake Powell, God affirmed that my time adventuring, being sharpened by Community like in the early church, and my time serving and seeing unseen people on the Race can continue.

 

The community that I once struggled in, is now the community I miss so much and want to be back in on a daily basis with a refreshed perspective letting the truth of just how loved and valuable I am wash over me (let it wash over you too, in every situation God calls you essential and loved as you are).

 

I came back from the Race feeling transformed by things that blew my mind whether it be testimonies of Muslims coming to faith or seeing people fall over from the Spirit when an Indian Malays prayed over them. I was a bit challenged and broken from all I’d seen as well. I also struggle how to share and integrate it all, but it’s worth it to help that one person in their journey to joy or someone who is lost and beaten up by the world like the prostitutes we got to pray over. I just want more. 

 

Amid covid and other tensions, we have a special opportunity to provide needed relief and hope in America and internationally. Adventures in Missions is currently using their international bases to feed people literally starving from the pandemic. What a blessing it will be to meet needs during this time. 

 

With that, God willing, I am going with the option that allows me to stay with some of my C-squad community who I have walked through so much with already….

 

 1. WR America: additional training for several days before, take a van August 1st from AIM’s headquarters in Georgia, serve with established ministry partners, evangelize, pray, grow in community, and discipleship opportunities for four months

I am so passionate about meeting tangible needs domestically right now, learning about/addressing injustice and racial tensions, and fascinated by all the sub-cultures within the US that I can share the love of Jesus with

And guess what I get to be my team’s story leader again, which is the only role I want to do!!! 

Here is what I know of our planned route with some of my previous squad mates!:

        Gainesville, Colorado (meet my brother’s baby!), Grand Canyon, awakening in Bellingham (3 WR America squads and local alumni getting together for some crazy time with God) – more details to come

 

 2. Come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas

 

 3. Hopefully use my remaining funds to serve international in January for a couple months or so: join an already established route or preferably go with C-Squad to an AIM base in somewhere like Eswatini or India to provide covid-relief 

 

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The sense of just passing through this world as mist really has washed over me since quarantine.  

 

God is better than I could have ever imagined but the world seems more and more insufficient to me. I do my best while I can, with love as my goal, but this broken world is not my home.

 

Like someone spoke over me when I committed to the Race, my journey would be like a game of Chutes and Ladders where I rise and fall all in order for God to capture my heart more.

Like someone spoke over me at training camp, I have a lot to learn, yet, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Like Amy spoke over me at launch, my roots are getting deeper in the Lord.

I just didn’t know it meant all other roots being uprooted. To only him can I hold, all else, in order to live abundantly, I must loosen my grip, now that’s hard. Even when it means everyone and everything will not be constant by my side, He makes my joy complete (John 15:11).

 

 

 

Thank you to my supporters, your money is going to reach more places now in a deeper more restorative way 

If you feel compelled, donations help so much!!!

Prayers make the world of difference, may the harvest come in America and across the world

Grace and Peace And Love,

Hannah