Learning dependence.

Oh boy, where do I even start with Romania… First off, I started my journey with my new team. We spent 5 weeks in Alba Iulia, a small city in northern Romania, serving a small church plant called Armonia (Harmony). To our surprise, we were given 2 events for our time there and hardly any other direction besides just to build connections with youth in the city and hopefully get them involved in the church. We were given full creative liberty and so we decided to start an English practice/class. We printed flyers and handed them out to literally ever teenager we could find in the city…. Week one, there was a group of 4 high school student friends that came (along with some others). There was no real plan for the class except to just talk with the students. Soon after we started chatting, the Lord highlighted one of the girls to me – telling me that I should pursue a friendship with her. After all the students left, I turned to my team, pointed to her, and said “she’s ready for the Gospel!” I spent most of my time in Alba meeting with her, sharing about Jesus, the Bible, the spiritual realm, and what life looks like for a follower of Jesus. We spent probably 15 to 20 hours together over my time there talking about Jesus and just being friends! It was the sweetest gift and such a testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness and direction. A few girls on the team and I got a bible for her and spent time highlighting verses, writing notes to explain, and writing prayers out in the Bible. The last night there we got to give it to her, as well as some anointing oil. TYJ!

After our time in Alba, we hopped on a train back to Craiova to move back into the mission house with the whole squad. We spent the next month serving with Hope Church, giving out shoe boxes in the communities (similar to Operation Christmas Child), doing office work at the church, helping with youth nights, and more. Oh, and LOTS of Christmas caroling…. Speaking of Christmas, we got to spend it all together as a squad and it was such a sweet time. Our squad leaders had gotten all of us stockings that we filled for each other, we did secret Santa, decorated cookies. Then Christmas morning we had brunch together, Jacob read the story of Jesus’s birth, then we handed each other gifts! So sweet getting to celebrate with new family. One more week of ministry, a New Years Eve event, mini debrief, and we hit the road for Albania!!

Also, for the Race so far, I was in the Logistics role, which means I planned debriefs and travel with the other two Log girls. BUT at this mini debrief, some roles changed! Some of you might know, but we have 3 alumni Squad Leaders who have done the Race before and have been leading our squad. But they leave half way through our route after raising up new squad leaders from within our group. (Alumni leave the middle of February.) So our raised up squad leaders were announced! Shoutout to Rachel, Riley & Amanda!!!! Some of my fav people ever! With that, 3 new team leaders were prayed for and chosen, and I am one of them!

Flashback to September 30th, 2022. Seems like forever ago. I went to stay with Katelyn in Lincoln, NE for the weekend to go to her church’s all night prayer and worship service. At this point, I had already decided I was going to do the World Race but I was still questioning if I was only supposed to do the 4 month trip or if I was supposed to do the 11 month. At this all night prayer, I so clearly heard the Lord tell me the word “dependence.” I had spent years planning my life – THINKING I was planning my life. Making plans and taking steps to achieve the things I felt God calling me to do. I had given God my ‘yes’ over and over. But this was different. This was almost a year of discomfort, being away from everything I knew, putting my life on pause (so I thought) – all of it – to give God my ‘yes.’ To completely depend on Him. To put His plan and will above mine.

Jump forward to November of 2023. Heading into my time in Romania, I knew what the Lord wanted to teach me – to give up control. YIKES. Nothing humbles you like recognizing the pride you’ve been living in, thinking you could control things better than God – thinking you HAVE control over God’s control. I love the World Race for so many reasons, but one being that this is a community, a Body, where people can call things out in you in love.

The Lord did in fact teach me to give up control. Some days it was easy, some days were hard, all were filled with prayer. The Lord even taught me more about fasting in this season of learning dependence as well. Spending a day without food, just to sit in the presence of the Lord all day. Fasting is about denying the flesh, giving up my control, and turning to Jesus – if I got hungry, I would pick up my Bible and read. If I wasn’t reading, I was on my knees in prayer. I’ve fasted before for Lent or other things, but never with this much understanding, never so Scripturally. It really opened my eyes to not just Scripture, but how close we can feel to the Father when we simply obey Him and follow Jesus’s life. November was such a sweet time for my relationship with the Father. Because of the freedom in our ministry and because of our leadership from Amanda, we were able to spend so much time together as a team in the Word and in prayer. Being on this team, with this ministry, under Amanda’s leadership was so purposeful by the Lord. Sometimes I think growing up as the kid that was “so mature for her age,” always followed the rules, “so responsible,” not a kid that caused issues, it caused me to miss out on just being a kid. I put so much pressure on myself when I was young and I never just let myself have fun. I think this (on top of an anxiety disorder) led to some of my control issues. Because of these things, my way of thinking and being responsible, I have been blessed by the opportunity to lead often even before the Race. I am so thankful for those opportunities and the things I learned, but I’ve seen here how different leadership can look. November was such a good month for me because I didn’t really have much to do for my job on Logistics and our ministry was super unstructured, so I got to learn how to just spend time with the Lord with no agenda or plan, go with the flow of the team, and learn under submission to leadership. Amanda leads from a place of freedom in and awe of Jesus – her leadership is an overflow of her relationship with the Father. She doesn’t have a high need for structure, she simply just does whatever the Lord leads her and the team too. On top of that, she just has fun!

God was intentional with this season for me. He wanted me to see what life can look like when I just have fun with Him!! I’ve always known that ultimately the Lord is in control, but I didn’t always act like it. God gave me such a special opportunity to see how I can surrender my control to Him, have fun with that, and be led by the Spirit. It wasn’t always easy, but it was fun and, honestly, one of the most formative months of the Race so far. I knew that season was preparing me for something – I didn’t know what, just knew something was coming. Little did I know, I would be taking Amanda’s position as Team Lead for this team! God’s so funny sometimes. But even more than that, I knew this season (and the whole World Race experience) would be preparing me for whatever God has planned for my life ahead. I’m finding that letting Holy Spirit lead is the most fun and freeing thing I can do – surrender & obedience to the Father’s will.

This is how the Father wants me to live – with complete dependence on Him.

As my teammate Anahbelle says, “God lead & Godspeed.”