My mother and sister and I happened to find this leather journal inscribed on it days before I left for the Race.

 

It beckoned me.

 

It’s the perfect quote for my vision for this trip. For the Gospel. The smallest of seeds turning into the greatest fruit and Kingdom; the rejected of society to be given a Crown by the one true King.

God willing, my deep roots in Christ will not be reached by the frost and the hardship of what I will see. God willing, I will preserver and become a person marked by compassion and the Spirit.

This journal, these pages, will hold the adventure of my life. One staff person just described the Race as like 10 years’ worth of experience in a single year.

I will hold this journal on the hundreds of buses, conversations, emotions, towns, times of day.

 

Onto this journal will wet tears fall from those that are lost and from my own wandering. Onto this journal I will record the fires sparked by God in human souls across 11 distinct cultures.

 

A year to go forward with a free heart, like my mother said, without attachment or control. Where, out of my comfort zone, God becomes my only comfort.

My race literally has begun; what I looked onto for two years, it is here. I am doing something that requires He shows up. He has to go before me.

 

Indonesia

 

 This is Indonesia.

In only four full days, I have fallen in love with a place and a people. 

  

 

This is our home for three weeks.

“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourself were suffering.” (Hebrews 13)

Our hosts this month embody this passage in scripture. They moved their entire lives to Indonesia to serve a people in love and in truth.

They run a program where locals who want to learn English can come to practice through the art of conversation and playing games.

They host volunteer groups like us. Whenever a new volunteer group comes in, the attendance increases.

Many college-aged students come with excitement to become more competitive in the job market as their English improves in this organic way.

Mondays we play sports with people who attend the English gatherings.

We also will have the opportunity to serve in many other ways this month from serving at an orphanage to teaching English in prisons to doing prayer walks on the red light district to attending local Bible studies to serving with women employed by our hosts. 

 

 

  This is Hospitality 

Every person who attends their English program, volunteers and anyone we meet, an expat teacher, a boy and his mother with an incredible testimony, are welcome to make this place their home. 

 

  

  This is God’s heart

Right as we arrived we met someone who happened to be visiting our hosts for a couple days. 

If there was any doubt in me about spreading the Good News to Muslims or about doing this trip, she silenced it. 

She grew up a devout Muslim. For six years she built relationships with Christian volunteers at the English program where she found love and inclusion. 

The volunteers also shared their faith. She used to roll her eyes, like many Indonesians say, your faith is your faith, my faith is my faith.

She started watching YouTube videos of Nabeel Qureshi (the same videos that impacted me when I went through a period of researching Islam).

And ultimately it was her Christian friend who showed up in her time of need that saw her come to Christ. 

 

She says I want to encourage you guys to not compare yourselves to each other (boy do I need to hear that) but know that you are so loved and needed. You guys are taking your time to serve a country that many people don’t even think about. 

You may not reap the harvest, but every part you play matters. She affirms, what God keeps reminding me of…

“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow…For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” –1 Cor 3

 

In the moment where Jesus became her Lord, she said she felt peace beyond anything as 27 years washed away.

She explained what it is like to have a real relationship with God.

One where if you mess up, the result isn’t condemnation. Instead this God leaves the 99 to pursue the one. 

She says she would make this decision over and over again even though she is facing exclusion from her family.

In tears, speaking to my heart, she proclaimed I will take up my Cross. I will follow Jesus today. I don’t need to know my future.

 

  

  This is us traveling the city by angkot 

Our first full day some local gems gave us an unforgettable tour of the city –  the warm and conservative culture, the busy and narrow streets, the spicy cuisine, the prayer chants bouncing between the buildings five times a day, and the curvy greenery. 

Everywhere we walk people stare and say “Bule, Bule” (white person). I better get used it; it might be like this for a year.

I actually don’t mind it though. People here seem to love westerners. 

 

 

 

 This is the English program 

Our first day I took a seat and literally did not move or stop talking for three hours.  

This month’s ministry in Indonesia, a dream for me.

Slow and relational 

They love to talk about deep things and to be spontaneous, to be blunt.

Yet, really we are the same – our passions, dreams, pain and laughter, personality, search for meaning, need for spirituality.

A 44 year old man recovering from polio in his twenties with a degree in chemistry and a smile that insecurely loves

An intelligent, social, and unrestrained dermatologist

A Christian boy my age with a kind heart, a big smile showing his gums and dreams of mastering in Film in the States

A shy, put together, kind Physics Major with plans to work in Japan, endearing but confident

A Muslim self-proclaimed metalhead girl-drummer with a gentle heart and a rebellious side

 

 

  This is our rooftop. 

I can only imagine how many more prayers I will pray after days and souls that blow my mind here in the wet, tropical Indonesian air.

Pray that Christ would lead us to the souls that are searching for hope, love, and belonging the most, that He would open their hearts to receive.

(He already has! I will get to that later in the blog)

 

 

 

Launch 

Let’s rewind…

I landed in Atlanta January 9th and hung in the airport for hours with Stephanie, a soul I have truly connected with. She’s familiar even though I barely know her.  

We ate lunch at the airport with more racers. One guy, who’s story I have held onto since training camp, joined us.

He was a Christian but didn’t feel the joy and abundant life that Jesus talks about in the Bible, so God called him to do something crazy.

For 18 months he walked across the United States with no plan except for trusting God to provide his every need. From sleeping in mansions to homeless shelters to someone driving up saying God told them to give him food. 

In a simple conversation he led an alcoholic to stop drinking. He said it’s all about what God does, not about what we say or try to do. After the race, God put it on his heart to go town to town in India and preach the Gospel in the same manner of trust, without source of income.

The story leaders of each team gathered the first days of launch for additional training and a night of reflection.

Our spoken word enthusiast, Angelica, shared the need for having a focused expectancy knowing the weight of what we have been called to do.

One squad leader for World Race America discussed the veil of prosperity covering people in the States, that we want the abundance of Christ but not to suffer for him.

Will I suffer for Christ this year that people would know His renewing light and hope?

I journaled that night: 

We are free agents, no attachments but abandonment, completely present for something bigger than us, something novel – each other

 

Many racers’ parents came to launch; my loving parents couldn’t make it due to our close family friend’s wedding.

One session with the parents there, the Lord spoke to me clearly. 

Do you see how you feel right now being without your parents? Some people feel that all the time; I want you to show those people My Love.

 

And He kept on speaking…

Pray that I would be sensitive to His voice and leading, because it is so easy to not.

 

Our layover from Atlanta to Indonesia was in Japan. I never wanted to go to Japan, but simply the airport and the graceful flight attendants makes me want to one day return.   

 

 

A prophecy come true

God loves me so much that he would tell me, three distinct occasions from three different people who don’t know me that well, specifically who I am and what I was made for.  

Anyone remember my training camp blog about the angelic girl who prayed over me the exact themes prayed over me years before in Nicaragua? 

Well my squad mentor walked up to me at launch:

As you were worshiping, I saw you as a tree rooted deep. An ocean around the tree. As you draw from that water your roots are going to get so much deeper and you are going to produce so much fruit. 

How could God be this good?

If you don’t remember, the girl at training camp months before prayed this:

Thank you God that these are hands of healing, Your hands were pierced right here with nails, thank you for her heart, that she is humble, that she will pour out love, thank you that you have a lot to teach her, but that she is rooted in you. Thank that her roots will go down deep and flow out like living water to everyone she meets and bear fruit, she won’t run dry, your healing will pour out of her, she will make you known…living water…living water

I open my eyes, she says your stunning, I see it in your eyes pools of living water. I think you may be called into full-time ministry. You’re exactly where you are supposed to be.

 

And in Nicaragua, like I mentioned in my other blog, we prayed for words over everyone on our team. For me they got: 

 

an image of a still ocean, an image of a tree resembling my steady faith, and an image of me playing in water with the scripture whoever believes in me, living water will flow their heart (John 7)

 

  This is me two days ago. 

I am swimming in an Indonesian waterfall as my team and new Muslim friend watch me. 

After hitting it off with this friend at the English program, I invited her to take us on our adventure day. Afterwards, she thanked me and said “this is the best day of my life.” 

Also that day, she asked us want to know a fun fact about me? I have started to read my Bible. People have been sharing the Gospel with me, and I want to understand. 

In this moment, that prophecy of me playing in water, my roots in Christ and his Holy Spirit starting to sprout fruit came true.

 

 

Pray for my friend and the many like her.

Pray for me that I would that person who‘s “delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields it fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers” (Psalm 1). 

Pray for my wonderful team and I – God “enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4).

 

Grace and Peace to you wonderful and loved individuals