Katie, 24

I became a Christian on January 19^th, 2007. My college roommates, Brandy and Chasi, encouraged e to go to church with them for years before I actually went and then on that day I finally excepted his never ending love. I went on about my life, casually reading the Bible and attending church on Sunday mornings. 

After I graduated college in 2008 I was looking into doing some mission work. I couldn't really find anything that looked really interesting. Then I started looking into the Peace Corp. After applying and interviewing, the district recruiter called me and told me that I did not have the experience that they looked for in Peace Corp applicants but it sounded like I just wanted to be a missionary. He told me that he had a friend that had done this thing called the World Race.

Four months later I flew to Ireland to start the World Race with 41 other people that I barely knew. I have traveled to: Ireland, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Palestine, Kenya, and Uganda. In these countries my team and I have spread love and the Word. We share Gods love with people that have no hope. 

Since starting the World Race I have realized that we are the church. We are Jesus' hands and feet. He has called us out to be bold and crazy and stupid sometimes. We do things that would seem absolutely absurd to my friends and family back home. For instance, we travel for 24 hours on a train to only get on another train for six more hours, and then arrive at our contacts house and are told that we have to a children's program ready the next day. And we do it with gladness but Jesus has called us out around the world for one year. He has called us to be His disciples and to spread His love. 

This month my team is back in Kenya. We spent the month of January here as well. We are getting to experience a World Race first. Usually we only get to spend a month in each country that we go to but because our contact was so amazing we prayed for two months that we could return here. And because God is so good, our prayers were answered. 

After this month we head out on the last leg of our trip to Southeast Asia. We will spend three months in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Then the World Race is over for us. 

My prayer is that my entire squad continues to live in the moment, and remembering the reason that we are out here in the first place. Continuing to love everyone that they meet with the same love that is constantly poured out on them daily and cherishing every moment we all get to be together. 

My faith has been rocked, I have lost my identity, and amazing grace has been poured out on me. God has shown me who I am in Jesus Christ. My identity lies in Him alone. I am forever wrecked. 

On the race I have been exposed to many different cultures, climates, and foods. We have met such as assortment of people I don't think that I will ever be able to explain all the craziness. We move every month and experience sad goodbyes and changes all the time. But the one thing that stays the same is I realize everyday that I am living in expectancy. I expect God to move everyday in my life. If He doesn't move I have to wonder what I am doing here. When He moves, I am allowed to bring His Kingdom because I know that I am in the middle of His will. I expect the sick to be healed, demons to be cast out, and the dead to be raised everyday! I can expect this because Jesus told me to. He told us to "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give." Matthew 10:8. And the reason that we can go out and do these things is because Jesus told us that we would do what He did (which was heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead).  "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father," John 14:12.  

We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;

by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;

through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

2 Corinthians 6:4-10

God has done so much in all of us. This month alone I have seen 45 kids come to Christ. 25 women healed (chest pain, foot and ankle pain, and headache).   1 man healed in the back of our broke down van. 2 of the most amazing pastors show my team the love of Christ. And this is just what I can think of off the top of my head. God is moving in Uganda. He is bringing hope back here through us. It is exciting to be a part of such an awesome movement of God. What I have learned this month is that it doesn't matter where you are staying or what you are going without but it is about the love. That same love that Christ called you to share with all of your neighbors. That is what we are sharing with the people of Uganda. You can find this love in the faces of the precious children that get excited like it is Christmas when you give them a plastic water bottle. You can find this love in the person that has never owned their own Bible. Or the wonder in an African's eyes when they see a white man for the first time in their life. God is love. That is it. He asked us just to love him and love one another (John 13:34). This seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life as I continue on this Race. Just love. I choose love. Just showing up is no longer an option. I know what I am called to. I am fully trusting that the God that loves me will take care of me. Because even when I am not loving, He still loves me, unconditionally. 

"Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,

 for his wondrous works to the children of man!

For he satisfies the longing soul,

and the hungry soul he fills with good things."

Psalms 107:8-9

Psalm 107

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good,
For His loving kindness is everlasting.
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary...

From time to time, my teammates and I have told one another to "just say so!" Implying the freedom to "be right where you are at" (no judgment here!) and the empowerment that comes from approaching life from the victorious position of being redeemed. (1 John 5:4-5) We have been bought back, brought out of death into life, and set free to live life as He intended: in fellowship with our God. When we hide in our own selves, there is no fellowship. For us to speak what is true about ourselves and God is to speak from the position of being the redeemed children of God. We stand acceptable and accepted because of Christ! Who told you to be ashamed or that you had to have it all together?! It is the "adversary" or the enemy who tempts us to believe this and he has been defeated--powerless towards the people of the Lord. We must remember the Voice that matters most. When we forget we are redeemed and forget to "attend to the steadfast love of the Lord" we feel vulnerable, exposed (experiencing the reality of our not being in control), and afraid to say anything at all. When life doesn't seem line up quite right or the circumstances are unsure, or at the slightest relational discomfort or lack thereof we are quick to forget what He has done on our behalf and who He has made us to be and how He pours out His love into our hearts by the power of His Spirit alone. This is what makes the DIFFERENCE! In these days of our sanctification/transformation into the likeness of Christ we have the choice to LIVE in that reality or to try to live this life in our own feeble resources until the day He returns and completes this beautiful work He has began in us at the moment of salvation. May the reality of our redemption and new life in Christ fall afresh on us:

1 Peter 2 :24-25

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,

that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed.

For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned

to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

FREEDOM to "say so" comes from believing and receiving for yourself that you are redeemed, first and foremost. There is no way to earn or lose the love and acceptance which God freely gives us in Christ. This experience also happens in loving community. As we work out the reality of our salvation "with fear and trembling" He moves from our head to our heart what that really means. Healing comes as we move through this process by faith, acknowledging our fears and feelings, allowing the grace of God to penetrate our faulty beliefs, often through the gracious response of others towards us.  Powerful.  Supernatural. True freedom comes in taking off the mask of having to have it all together or be independent of God(dying to sin) and being who He has created you to be: a dependent child on Abba, Father (living to righteousness).

I have been thinking a lot lately about something that I think a lot of us have already discovered, but few of us admit. We wear a "protector" around our lives, keeping people and even God at arm's length. She knows she needs to take it off, but it's not easy. Our souls crave to be known, our Spirits cry out to drink deep from the Living Water, yet we choose to stay in what we've been deceived into believing is "safe." The TRUTH? Our God longs to BE our protector! Our Safety! Our refuge! Our HOME, but we must die to the old way of "safe" living, which is not really living at all. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came to this earth with the gospel message: "I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly." When we operate out of the riches and wealth of Spirit that comes from standing on these realities our life IS different! He satisfies us (Psalm 63) in this dry and weary land of the world. The Spiritual reality becomes our reality and we live in the paradigm of the life of Christ! When we stop searching for a formula and live IN CHRIST we find what we were looking for in the beginning...

Psalm 107

⁴³ Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things;
let them consider the steadfast love of the LORD.

Colossians 2

January 3^rd was my birthday. It was amazing. It was my first international birthday celebration. My team was amazing. The entire squad sang "Happy Birthday" to me at breakfast and treated me to a wonderful surprise dinner. 

                But there are some other BIRTHday celebrations that I wanted to talk about. January 19^th is my BIRTHday too. In 2007 that is the date that I committed my life to Jesus. It was in my dorm room after one of my roommates bought me a Bible for my birthday. And now it is also the date of my baptism. 

                Let me back up just a little bit. I had been looking forward to Israel for the entire race. I thought that I was supposed to be baptized in the Jordan River. Well when it came time to go to Galilee I was out of money. I asked God, "If you want me baptized in the Jordan, you need to make something appear in the bank account or get someone to pay for me to go." Turns out He did not want to me to be baptized there.

                Fast forward to Kenya. Our contact, Pastor Patrick, took our team to a beautiful waterfall on Tuesday. It was so amazing. Then we went to a smaller part of the river that we could go swimming in. We were wading in the water and I just heard God telling me this is the place you will be baptized. So I walked over to Tamica and told her that I wanted to be baptized in the river. Her reply was "Cool, when are we coming back here?" I said "No, right now." Then she asked if she should go get Pastor Patrick. I said "No, you do it." She was completely caught off guard but Dez, from team Sophia, came over and they both baptized me in a Kenyan river that doesn't have a name. The water was freezing but if didn't seem to make a difference. So, on January 19^th, 2010 I was made a new creation.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to

give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will

We made it to Arad. We are having a great time hanging out with the other teams that are here. We started teaching English to little kids in a Be'er Sheva, about 30 minutes away. We have also been handing out some literature in a market place. My blog today is mainly about the events that happen December 17, 2009. Here is the run down.

7:30am- Team Fanatic walks to the retreat center for worship

8am- worship starts but the van is not at the retreat center

9am- I receive a call from our contact asking us to paint a lady's house while we are in Be'er Sheva

9:30am – we are suppose to be leaving but the van is nowhere to be found, the credit card is lost (we need the credit card to buy the paint), and we don't know how to get to the lady's house

10am- we still haven't left yet but the van is back

10:30am- we finally get on the road, only to find out that we need gas.   We stop to get gas. It is much harder to buy gas in foreign countries when you don't speak the language or read it.

11am – we call the guy that is meeting us in Be'er Sheva to let him know that we are on the road.

11:45am- we arrive and meet up with our contact and head over to the market.

12-1:30pm- we hand out booklets at the Bedouin Market

2pm- we drive to Ace Hardware to buy the paint but as I pull into the parking spot, I hit a parked car.

3pm- as we are trying to pay for the paint and supplies, the store will not take the credit card because we don't have his ID. They eventually work it out and we get out of there.

3:45pm- after lunch we head over to paint the house.

4pm- we discover that we have only bought one scraper and we needed about 5 more because there is paint that is falling off the walls.

4:15- I head out with our friend that met us there to look for scrappers.

4:30pm- we are in the paint store again, and we get a call from the rest of the team asking us to buy some colored paint instead of just the white paint.

5pm- we are leaving the parking lot and someone smashes into his brand new car that he had just gotten this week.

5:45pm- we arrive back at the apartment to find that David and Daina have already painted one of the rooms white. So Danielle and I start painting another room, while the other guys start cleaning the rest of the mess that we had made.

6:30pm- both rooms are successfully painted two rooms and cleaned the rest of the house. We head out the door. We get in the car to go home and the car is dead. Fortunately, it started about 10 minutes later. 

8pm- we arrive safely back at the retreat center.

                A lot of people would consider this a bad day. With all things said and done, it wasn't the best day but it wasn't the worst by far. This was probably one of the craziest days that I have had on the race. Everyone on Team Fanatic had such a great attitude about everything that happened. We all walked away from yesterday knowing that God was in control and has a great plan for us.

Last month while we were still in Turkey, I picked up Tamica's (one of our squad leaders) copy of "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. She said she loved this daily devotional, so I started reading just random days. I fell in love. This man was amazing. I love the way that he described everything. After reading it, I wanted a copy for myself. I have been searching and finally succeeded the other day in Jerusalem. I just wanted to share with you the message from the other day that I read.

December 9

The Offense of the Natural

"And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Galatians 5:24

"The natural life is not sinful; we must be apostatized from sin, have nothing to do with sin in any shape or form. Sin belongs to hell and the devil; I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and God. It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence and self- assertiveness, and this is where the battle has to be fought. It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God's best. To discern the natural virtue antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ. "They that are Christ's have the crucified flesh"-it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not something. Jesus said- "If any man will be My disciple, let him deny himself," i.e., his right to himself, and a man has to realize Who Jesus Christ is before he will do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.

The natural life is not spiritual, and it can only be made spiritual by sacrifice. If we do not resolutely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural in us. There is no royal road there; each of us has it entirely in his own hands. It is not a question of praying, but of performing."