This blog was written by my beloved friend and squad mate Drea Strazter . She has a way with words, verbal and written. So leave it up to her to write one of the best and most inspired blogs summarizing The Race. It's worth reading. It's worth going...


 

I am standing on the shores of the raging sea, watching a title wave rising in the distance. Its gaining speed and force. Rising in size and power. I stand trembling on its shores and instead of running to my safe cave to the left I dive in and swim right into it. I boldly advance towards the mighty wave. I go not on a suicide mission, but I go because between me and this wave lies a rock. A solitary rock that stands above the water, beckoning me out. It calls out "I never said I'm safe, but I am good. And I am faithful. And I am your only chance at surviving this thing."
 

So I swim. I swim like hell to the rock that's calling out my name, begging me to trust. I swim into the frightening storm and straight into my Saviors arms.

This incubator, this lifestyle, has become safe. Somehow, while I wasn't looking, it became my safe harbor. Somewhere along the way it turned into my normal and I forgot that at one point the prospect of a trip like this was my storm. I can remember standing on the shores of this year, looking out into the unknown and shaking in fear. I knew it was going to transform me and my reality, although in my naivety I underestimated the gravity of transformation that comes with encounters of the Almighty. I feared the responsibility that came with seeing a dying world. I feared the insufficiency on my behalf to do anything about it. I didn't trust Him then and Im struggling to trust Him now.

Its time for a new storm.

I sat sobbing tonight as I watched the wave of transition rising in the distance. In 10 short days I will hit U.S. soil and life will drastically change, yet again.

Over the last year life has been a bittersweet privilege. I have been honored to watch God's people shine across the earth. Every day I think "How is this my life? Why did God bless me with this crazy pilgrimage? How did I get so lucky??" I have witnessed great victory and immense tragedy. I have slept in over 50 locations, moving on average every 6 days between 14 countries, across 3 continents. I have lived amongst the poor and hurting nations, loved them the best I knew how, and sat broken at the alter with them as we surrendered our lives and mess up to our healer and provider. I came to serve them and was humbled time and again as they served us.

We sang and danced in the dirt of Africa, laughed with children of every color, and I took notes as we watched Mama's fight for their nation to raise up out of despair and hopelessness. Women in Serbia taught me what it was to be a wife and mother. Ive floated in the dead sea and walked where Jesus walked. I peed on my feet more times than I could count, not thinking anything of it. I basked in the exhilaration of bucket showers after painstakingly hot days in the jungles of Cambodia.

I have held a man after watching his wife die of aids, I have counseled a woman who was beat the morning before church by her husband for being a Christian, but she came anyways. I was baptized in a muslim nation on a day of thanksgiving. I conquered fears and chose adventure. I hung out with prostitutes in Thailand. I watched a mother in Uganda bury her baby that died of Malaria- the same disease that I, along with half our squad, contracted at some point in Africa. I prayed with a 13 year old gypsy girl  as she encountered the Holy Spirit for the first time on a moonlit hill in Romania.

But I did none of this. The Lord did it all. I had nothing to give, no good of my own accord or strength could have accomplished any of it. Tonight a friend reminded me of God's promise in Phillipians- "He will finish the good work He began in you Dre. He began it before this race, and it will continue beyond this year." He began a work, long ago, in my friends around the world too, and is continuing it after I have left. I just got the joy of being a very small part of Gods story in them. What a blissful and trying joy it has been.

So it continues. The story goes on. I will swim out to the rock and listen for His gentle whisper through the raging waters of emotion and confusion. I will trust that He is good and faithful, just like the sunrise I watched this morning from my treehouse.

He never said He was safe, but He is good.