I got my hair braided!! I looove my hair, it took 12 hours, whew!!
horseback riding!!!
I got to pet a cow!!!
team time at do-fill! It’s caramel and chocolate filled churros 🤯
these are my new favorite flower 🥰
one of my favorite pictures 😁😁🥰🥰
we got to go on a safari!!
in the nature park that the safari is in, they have over 700 ELEPHANTS!! 🐘
x squad and GLA staff praying over the boys before they headed off to Lesotho
Lexi and I enjoying McDonald’s WiFi and mcflurries 😋
the ministry at the school that we’re doing!
some of the beautiful sunsets on the base of GLA
from right to left, Jacob, Laura Jane, me, and Lexi out and about when we had our layover in Johannesburg
When we got to visit Lexi’s friend from YWAM, Tasha!!
team time at trawlers, a fish and chip place down the street from our base 😊
Gianna washing our feet and praying over each of us 🙏🏼 ❤️
x squad!!
One of the women we got to evangelize to, Elizabeth!
we got to go surfing!
me holding one of the girls during our kids program
us gardening in the community garden
banana trees everywhere!! This is outside of one of the cafes that we favor 😋
Hello from GLA in JBay! My team and I realized last week that we have already had 5 months on the field and we are not heading into our 6TH month on the field! 🤯. But when I think back to Cambodia, it feels like it was years ago that we did that, not months ago. When you’re on the field, it’s really easy to lose track of time or even forget what day it is. I want to sincerely apologize to all of my supporters and those who are following my journey for not posting beforehand. I intended to get a blog post, a vlog, and pictures out last week but it did not happen in that manner. It has felt like I have had a lot of the spirit of apathy and a little bit of slothfulness. I experienced this at Cedarville as well where I know what I want to do but when I go to do it, an overwhelming feeling just overtakes me and the task feels so daunting. I am trying and working on breaking my tasks up into smaller more manageable chunks so I can get more things done in a considerable time frame.
The first month of X Squad being in Jeffrey’s Bay has come and gone way faster than I expected. For team YADA’s ministry, we were working at a church in the impoverished side of Jeffrey’s Bay where people need to hear the Gospel. The people are longing, searching, and yearning for something that they’re trying to fill with anything and everything in this world when they don’t realize that what they need is Jesus Christ and they can be eternally fulfilled by Him and nothing but Him. With our ministry primarily being youth/children’s ministry, it comes to be more difficult than expected to feel or see the fruit of our works. But that does not mean that I don’t see fruit, I feel it when I am loving on the kids and helping out in every ministry that I’m in. Even though I don’t “see” fruit, it still brings me peace from the Lord knowing that the love and kindness that I am showing are sowing seeds into these kids’ lives. Being in this season of youth ministry in my life has been showing me to remain even more faithful to the Lord in all that I am doing because I know that I am opening up my arms to be a vessel for Him and it is truly up to the Lord to do the rest.
In this season of my life with the World Race, the Lord has been showing me so many things. He has been showing me:
-
I need to let go of my past self of who I identified as and let the Lord identify me/ find my identity in the Lord.
-
He needs to come FIRST in my life. I thought I was putting Him first but He needs to have the true top priority in my heart. My heart needs to experience His love first because we can only truly love through Him. Genuine love comes and pours out from Him, nowhere else.
-
He wants me to know Him as Father and he wants me to know that He is proud of me and He loves me like a Father.
-
He has SO much in store for me, especially for this year. This year I am going to experience the Lord like I never have before.
-
I have a fire and passion that only comes from the Lord that I need to share with others even when I feel like I’m not feeling or seeing from Him. I can still pour in others because anything that I do is not through me, it is through Christ in me and that is the only way that I can genuinely pour out into others is “yet not I but through Christ in me.”
-
I have such a sense of strength and confidence that radiates from me, the joy that I have truly comes from the Lord.
-
My season with the World Race is not over yet!
-
He is going to use my testimony to show others Christ through me.
-
I was bought at a price that has been paid for! I am FREE because HE died on the cross for me! I do not need to prove myself in anything because the only thing that I need to be boasting about is JESUS CHRIST. I am washed from HEAD to TOE in HIS BLOOD.
Just to name a few… 😉
I have been taking classes with the College of Athens to earn college credit and for each class there are books to read. One book that I’m reading is called Spirit led evangelism and it has been showing me how much God loves His people and how important it is to understand God’s heart and what He wants for His people. He cares especially for the widows, children, and the poor. The kids that are in our ministries, you never know where they’re coming from. it’s so important to show them so much love whenever we get the chance.
The question has been coming up around the squad since the beginning of January “What are you doing after the race?” Well, I have a few options. I have two different things to consider, summer and fall plans.
Summer options!
-
For my summer, I have the option of doing a semester abroad in Italy with the World Race as soon as my race ends and the semesters abroad would be two months long, starting on May 24th (literally the day after this race ends) and going until July 24th.
-
The second option for my summer is working at a summer camp in Pennsylvania called Pine Valley, specifically because there are about 6 or 7 other people from my squad working there for this summer and it would be amazing to be able to be a camp counselor with people from my squad, continuing the community that I’m with. I am leaning more toward Pine Valley so I can catch a breather (somewhat) before jumping right into the next thing.
Fall options!
-
For the fall of this year, I have the option of doing a program associated with Adventures in Missions (AIM) called CGA (Center for Global Action). It’s a 4-month leadership and discipleship program that I would have the opportunity to go through to grow closer with others, and the Lord, and learn more about myself as well. But the only “issue” with this option is that there were so many applicants that they’re only allowing 20 people in total from W and X squad combined, so only 3 boys and 7 girls from X squad and 3 boys and 7 girls from W squad. The deciding factor is going to be a lottery system where the people will be chosen at random, if I am understanding that correctly, I could be wrong. We have been given the option to choose if we want to wait for the lottery or if we want to be automatically moved to the January semester. The people who are not chosen now for the Fall 2024 for CGA will be moved to the January semester in 2025. I have applied and I’m deciding to keep my name in this lottery to see if I can get into CGA for this fall. If I don’t get in I will…
-
Go on the semesters abroad Italy trip in the fall! I could earn college credit, in Italy! Or I could also…
-
Go back to Cedarville in the fall! I do miss my Cedarville friends 🥲
I have been constantly praying about all of my options for the past two weeks. A rough draft of a plan that sounds good to me is Summer: Pine Vally. Fall: Italy Semesters Abroad. January 2025: CGA (if I don’t get in the lottery for this fall).
So for our first month of ministry, I cannot remember if I had mentioned before but we all switched squad leaders. Team YADA got Kevin as our leader! And it just happened to be that the new month lined up with when we switched our leaders again! So now for the rest of February (the rest of the time that we’re here), we have Sadie as our leader! I’m so excited to learn from her 😄. The second month of February marked a lot of changes/new beginnings for the squad, but more specifically for YADA. There are several things:
-
YADA switched from Kevin as our leader to Sadie 🥳
-
The boys left for Lesotho on the 6th 😭
-
The rest of the people who didn’t go to Lesotho, which is all the girls plus Kevin and Ethan which makes 29 people, moved back to the GLA base, also on the 6th.
-
YADA switched our ministry, the youth ministry at Impact Church to the ministry that the boys were doing at Pellsarus school in J Bay.
My team has grown so much in unity within the past month and it has made me so happy to see. The fact that we’re closer now than we ever have been before has made it so much easier to go through all of these changes because we’re all going through them together and we’re all here to encourage/ uplift each other and just be a shoulder to cry on. My team is truly starting to feel like my sisters and the boys are truly starting to feel like my brothers. When I said goodbye to them on the morning of the 6th, it truly felt like I was saying bye to 14 of my brothers even though I’ve never had brothers before. This squad is settling in as a family.
Please continue to pray for my squad as we are all still going through spiritual warfare, whether we realize it or not. Please pray for me and the decisions I have to make within the next two weeks that I feel peace about the decisions and I use my best discernment that the answers I’m getting are from the Lord. Please pray for patience, endurance, and motivation to be able to do the Lord’s work well and to the best of my ability. Please pray for the relationships on my team and squad that they will continue to grow and be strengthened through the Lord. To Him be the glory forever and ever, amen. 🙏
