HEY I WROTE THIS 3 MONTHS AGO, SORRY IT’S BEEN SO LONG
Hey guys!!
Adventures in Missions provided a really awesome opportunity for our parents to be able to come out to the field and visit us on the race last week, and it was seriously the sweetest time ever! There was something so special about having the parents here in person to see what we do, and each night coming together to praise the Lord with several generations.
The parents were here for about 5 days in Eswatini, and I think about 17 racers’ parents came. (Which is the majority of us since there’s only 23 of us on the squad, haha). Though, our schedule there didn’t exactly match what our daily norms are (which i’ll talk about in the next blog), it was pretty close and a perfect chance for our parents to see what we do.
The average day that week looked like waking up around 7, breakfast at 7:30, ministry at 9 until noon, lunch, free time until dinner, dinner, then nightly meetings that consisted of testimonies, teachings from racers, games, and worship!! It was really sweet, and the days were a little different from day – day but that’s basically it as far as timing. For ministry, we just went to care points, and if you missed my explanation of that in the last blog, a carepoint is basically a place in a community ran by locals, and is a program for children to come and be fed, a preschool, and also helps provide funding for kids to go to school when they’re older because school isn’t free here. Ps, sorry for the run-on sentence, haha. But there’s also playgrounds for us to play on!! And the kids, of course.
As well, having the parents was such an awesome experience to see where each kid came from!! Haha it was crazy, because i’ve known these people from living with them day in and day out for the last 7 months, but then to see them with their mom & dad, i could see exact mannerisms and ideologies that have been obviously passed down. It was really cool and funny. They also provided a lot of encouragement in several ways, by encouraging us in our faith, offering insight on visual ways they’ve seen growth in us, and bringing to the table new and different ways to worship, pray, and get into the word. I loved every minute of it.
For me, my mom came out all the way to Africa to see what’s been going on, and it was a super sweet week for us. We both had talked about how before the trip, we were simply just excited to see one another, spend time together, and reconnect. But after the week, we were just so thankful that God created the opportunity for her to see what i’ve been doing and how incredible it really was, and He also provided space for some conversations that we hadn’t really had the chance to talk about before and it was just really awesome. So it was sweet to see how God shaped both of our perspectives and redirected us back to Him.
Biblical worldview: This week was really an incredible testimony of how ministry doesn’t end after the race. Of course, I’ve known that and it’s been head knowledge, but seeing all of our parents walk out the Love of Christ and continuing to serve the Lord with their lives even while having jobs, children, etc., it was really cool to see how this really isn’t the end. They told testimonies of how they were able to share the gospel and serve God in their workspace and other similar types of places, and it was really awesome encouragement to show how ministry is life and life is ministry. Just really cool to help continue shaping my perspective of a biblical worldview as I begin to think of reentering life in the states since the race is coming up to its end.
