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It is so very precious to be able to spend this year trying to figure out what God is calling me to do with my life.  This rare privilege has been the most difficult and incredible decision I have ever made.  I have learned more and felt more and grown more in 6 weeks than I have in the entirety of my 5 year part time Christian walk.

So here I sit.  On my balcony in Haiti, staring out at the ocean and a raging storm.  And God tells me once again, just how small I really am by the might of his thunder.  And it is humbling and comforting all at the same time.  

This past weekend, while we were up in the mountains in a broken church with half of its walls, God really started to speak to me in a new way.  I have always been the person that wrestles with God, that tooth and nail, knock down drag out fights with everything I have in opposition to his will for me.  I will dig my heels in, curse his name, refuse to move, scream and cry and kick.   I am a 24 year old toddler in the candy aisle of this world.  I can see and look and know all the good things that are around me, and yet God’s will is not for me to have those things, but instead things of his kingdom.  “But I want those.” I cry in my whiniest voice.     Usually He ends up reprimanding me in some miraculous way, and I stare wide eyed at Him, disbelieving that He just scolded me.  I give in eventually after buckets of tears and drama.

But this weekend, God called me to a new way of interaction.   Voluntary change.  Not forced, not coerced, not pushed or dragged or strong-armed.  Listening to the worship of people who have no possessions, watching them raise their hands in love and praise to their Father convicted me in a way I had never before experienced.   And God spoke to me and said He wanted to change from forcing me along, to guiding me with His light.  It is time for me to start participating. It’s time for me to start following.  Ok, God.  But I have no idea what that will look like.   And just as I reply, in the back room of a completely darkened church, a lightning bug lands on a bible on the table and turns the pages green with its glow.    The second he tells me he will guide me with a light, he sends a tiny lantern to me.  “It will look how I want it to look, when I want it to look that way.  So keep walking in faith.  Follow the Light.”  And I watched as the lightning bug walked around on Proverb 31, then lifted off and flew into the rafters, out a hole in the ceiling into the night sky.    All I could do was laugh. 

I know God is calling me to be a woman of great faith, peaceful and graceful in love.  And my sincerest prayer is that I can keep my eyes on Him long enough to get there.  Here is to week 6.

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The term mountain is often used to describe large emotional and spiritual challenges in someone’s life.  But once in a rare while, a mountain is just what it was intended to be, a topographical location that involves climbing if you want to get around it.  This weekend, my team and I got to experience the most intense mountain of our journey so far, and hopefully ever. 

There is no real way to explain what we went through this weekend.  Sometimes people can find words, but when it is 100 degrees, and you have been hiking so long your legs are numb,  following a man you can’t understand farther into the wilderness of a foreign country, every bone in your body screams, “BAD IDEA.  VERY VERY BAD IDEA.”  But we knew that God had called us to do the trek for a reason, so despite our 30 minutes of sleep the night before, raging hunger and dehydrated bodies,  we pushed on.  We pushed on and on, and up and over mountain after mountain after mountain.  And then there came the point, where we could not push anymore.  Sarah, Samantha, Daniel and myself collapsed at the side of a white stone wall, in the middle of nowhere.   Jon and Cinthia had long since lagged behind us, and we were worried because we hadn’t seen them in over an hour.  However there was a comfort knowing that they had the translators with them.  But just as Daniel fell over into my lap with labored breathing, I let out a silent prayer that God would show up and give us water.   When we tried to explain to the pastor that we couldn’t take another step without it, he just kept pointing in an inland direction, claiming, “very close, very very close.”   We all whispered curses under our breath, and let out exhausted laughs, “that is what you have been saying for 11 hours now, I do not believe you anymore. I stopped believing you three mountains ago.”  He would smile and reply, “Djan Djan, Vayan Soldah,” which means roughly, ‘strong now, go soldier.’   And as we agitatedly motioned to our water bottles, and a few of us cried,  a farmer walked by and asked if we were alright.   Obviously four white missionaries in a remote location drew a lot of attention, and when we pointed at our bottles, he returned with filtered water.  FILTERED water in a land where there is no power might as well have been a miracle.   So we waited for about 15 minutes for our bodies to recharge, and then we picked up and continued on.   Thank you Jesus.   

When Cinthia and Jon caught up to us about half an hour later, we were ecstatic to be all together again.  But as the pastor kept motioning us onwards, and our tempers were reaching critical levels, a strange thing happened.  We stopped to pray.    Now I say a strange thing, because in any normal situation at home, we would have called our mom or dad and told them where we were and how to pick us up.  We would have called the forest rangers and asked them to get a lock on our location and request an evacuation.  But in the mountains of Haiti there is no such thing, and so at the end of our ropes of strength, perseverance and will power, we gathered together and cried and prayed that God would save us.  Immediately He showed up, and we all got goosebumps.  We asked him for patience, and we had patience, we asked him for strength and we had strength, we asked for better attitudes, and we received them. We received these gifts, because we literally had nothing left of our own to offer or give.   And our final request was that the journey be over soon.   We said our amen, and turned and walked following the pastor.   About 5 minutes later, he points to the right down a side road, with a smile.   Thank you Jesus, we have arrived.  And after 11 hours and 28 minutes of the most intense heat and pain and dehydration we had ever gone through, the entire church burst into worship as we entered the gates of the compound.   The sound was the most heavenly thing I had ever heard with my ears, and we all sat on the benches of the pews and wept openly before an entire congregation.  We had called to God, and God showed up.   

And he continued to show up all weekend long.  I will explain those miracles later.  But know that no matter where you are, how dire the situation, the second that you stop attempting to solve the problem yourself, and ask God for direction, He will give it.  He will heal you.  He will rescue you. 

If you have enjoyed this post, please consider donating to my mission! I still have to raise $2656 to complete my funding.   Click here  and donate. Every dollar matters!     Blessings to you all! 

It’s hard to describe Port Au Prince at night.  Luckily I had been there during the daylight hours several months before and my memory could fill in the blanks that the darkness created.  It was pitch black when we arrived, and all the devastation was mostly obscured by the lack of electricity and light.  There was nothing but cars and candles to illuminate the broken city. 

The rest of the team was spared, I’m sure of it.   God covered their eyes for one more night, before ripping apart their world in the morning, in an act of extreme mercy.  There is no way to process the city.  There wasn’t in March, and there isn’t in August.   So as we piled into the back of an open air truck, all 13 of us, with luggage and expectations and hope for this month, it seemed fitting that the sky was drizzling out a steady mist of mourning on us.

Team SOL was heading to Canaan Orphanage, and our team was scheduled to stay with them a few days, so we all took the vehicle the two hours through winding city streets and moonlit country roads to the site north of Port Au Prince.   And as their eager eyes scanned the darkness for glimpses of the city, I turned my down to the ground.  I didn’t really need to see it again. 

I immediately plugged my headphones in, expecting my brain was about to start up the same questions I struggled with months before, “Why?”  “Why Haiti, God, why not where I live?”  “Where are you in all this?”  “Were you here when mothers were dying, when children were being orphaned?”  But those questions didn’t come.  Instead, in the cool night air of a midnight ride, God found me.   And out-sung the speakers.  And as His song washed over me, every doubt I had ceased.   

Peace, my children, as I carry you on.  Peace go with you, I’m taking you home.  I’m going to break your heart, I’m going to make you grow.  I’m going to wreck you and rebuild you and make you strong. I’m going to give you eyes to see your brothers.  I’m going to use your hands to aid those I love.  I’m going to make your words carry my fame and glory. You will become an example of my love.  Peace, my children, as I carry you on.

And as we passed the mass burial fields, and the tent camps, and the outline of the city in the darkness, I watched the tears well up and spill all around me.  But my heart was still, and I rested.   Because despite not knowing where I was going to sleep, or if I would eat that night, I knew God is good always, and He promised me He would never let me go.

Psalm 42:8b  His song will be with me in the night- a prayer to the God of my life.

I know that I didn’t update you all as much as I should have last month about what I did, and where I was, and how my being here mattered.  But let me say now, that looking back it is easier to see just how much God moved.  When I look at who I used to be, and just how much 4 weeks can change someone, it blows my mind.  So when I think about it in the context of how did what I do matter to someone else, the only evidence that I can offer you is a photo.

I got extremely close with a family during my time in the Dominican.  If there was a spare moment, I was with them, singing, laughing, crying and talking.  I taught the daughters English, and talked to them about Jesus.  We hugged, and grew together as only God can orchestrate.   And for the first time I let myself give in and love someone that I knew I had to leave.  And on the last day, as we were leaving, my heart broke open when I looked and saw that Marilin wasn’t there to hug goodbye.  I told her I would be leaving at one, so when she wasn’t there, it hurt.   So I walked out of the slums, head down and broken that I couldn’t tell her what I wanted to say.  

As we turned the corner onto the main road, about a mile away from the church, I heard my name called aloud.   “Estacia!”   I whirled around to see Marilin, running as fast as she could with no shoes on, on a street covered in broken bottles and shards of metal, with her arms open.   My breath left my body as she pressed into me, and stated ‘No Ve.’  Don’t go.   I just shrugged my shoulders and cried.  I told her she was a woman of God.  That she would leave this place, and be a light for the Lord.  I told her I loved her, that I need to know she will be OK.  She said she would, and that she would sing and pray for me while I was away.  It was in this moment that I knew God can move anyone, anywhere according to his whim. 

So I stood in the street, in the blazing sun, crying and hurting and loving this little girl.  And if it had taken the whole year to get to this moment, it would have been worth it.  She will get out.  She will do something incredible.  And I can’t wait to get to see her again one day, and talk and talk without a language barrier, while we dance in the glory of God in heaven.

If you have enjoyed this post, please consider donating to my trip! I still have to raise $3006.   Click here  and donate. Every dollar matters!     Blessings to you all!  

I always thought that dancing with the devil would look differently than this.  I thought it would be more epic.  More fun.  Riskier.  Sexier.  But when it comes down to it, it is more just like entertaining thoughts.  And as demon rage clings above my bed, staring down at me, I half heartedly think about letting him in.  About allowing him to infuriate me, and send me flying off the handle because it would feel so good.  It would feel so good to flip out and yell and emote something.  Rather than sitting here sulking and broken for the loss of my teammate. Tonight we found out that Blake is leaving us to join another group.  And  it would be a lie to say that I feel any other emotion than anger.

Blake is a man of integrity, and someone that I lean on and love and need.  And to have him yanked away after only four weeks feels cruel.  Four weeks is just long enough to fall in love with someone, and feel like the rest of the world comes down around you for the lack of them.  It's enough time to grow to laugh for the first time in years and mean it, then wonder if you can still laugh like that without them.  It's enough time to make some of your favorite memories of your lifetime, and realize that from now on that's all you will get to have.  It's time enough to be challenged beyond measure, and grow so quickly it hurts.   Four weeks might not be a lot of time to some.  But when you live with, walk with, and need someone for those weeks, it is difficult to trust yourself without them.  I feel like I have to go back to training camp.  And it isn't fair. And it isn't easy.   So tonight, just for tonight, I'm going to be angry.  I'm going to be bitter and hurt and confused.

But tomorrow will be better, because God is always good.  God will be found in this change.  God will move and be glorious and endlessly beautiful.   And  hopefully someday soon, the big cosmic plan will show me why this had to happen. 

 I will miss Blake fiercely.  And this, this will not change.  

First meltdown of the trip: check

First time crying like a jackass at the top of the stairs for over an hour in the darkness: check

First time I’ve ever felt comfortable crying in my whole life: check

I feel like slowly pouring out of me is a river of tears long hidden and held back.  That with each heartbreak comes an ability to feel something.  As though some ancient faucet turned off long ago is finding new water to seep.  Weeping out in machine gun bursts of sobs, the pressure is easing and my inflated inability to comprehend relationships is waning.

We spent the day in poverty.  In dirt.  In awful, miserable heat and pain with the most beautiful children you have ever seen. And while the fight for hope rages on there, it is the feelings within the house that today constantly push me to the edge.  To see so many sisters and brothers struggling to break free of anger and bitterness and rejections and disappointment, (myself included) is incomprehensible.  Especially when they have such a heart to serve everyone but themselves.  It makes no sense to me at all. 

At 24 years of age I was held for the first time while crying.  And I couldn’t second guess the tears, and I couldn’t shut them off.  They just came and came and came and came.  For the first time I was held and they meant it, as I melted into a puddle of emotions even I didn’t comprehend.  The time passed and I soaked their clothing and hair with tears, but they didn’t shrink back or send me to be alone.  They didn’t laugh at how ridiculous I was or explain how my problems, in the scheme of things, weren’t really problems at all.  They instead surged forwards and wrapped around me like a koala bear.  They held me as I fell apart.  Every disjointed and misaligned member of my body, they hedged in with their body and love. So my prayer is that this river would keep coming.  That I would begin to understand the dynamics of an actual living community, not a zombieland of over achievers and under feelers.  It is hard to learn how to cry.  And it is even harder to learn how to love. 

I asked God why I was so emotional, why I was such a mess over the little innocuous things.  He replied to me, “You are a sorrows keeper.”    When I asked what He meant by that He spoke into my heart the truest thing He had ever told me.  “You hang onto sorrows, Stacey.  Because they moved you, once.  So you carry them around, trying to feel something.  Anything.  But now, darling, I need to move you, and I can’t until you let go of them.  So prepare for my works in you.  They will be great.”  

God give me the strength to keep trying,  otherwise I may flood this house to the rafters.

But then again, that may be just what I need.

If you have enjoyed this post, please consider donating to my trip! I still have to raise $3304.   Click here  and donate. Every dollar matters!     Blessings to you all!   

I woke up to a hibiscus blossoming outside my sliver of a window.  I could see it just barely peeking through the grey mesh curtain in an explosion of pink.  It was as if God was trying to tell me that today might be the day.  It might be the morning where I finally know that I am beautiful.  That just as quickly as a flower opens for the sun, I could find myself satisfied. Many people in my life have always found it to be a silly battle, cutting the shame deeper by their laughs, scoffs or callous disregard.  Of course you’re beautiful Stacey, have you looked in the mirror, ever?  But more often the largest and most vicious opposition in the world is not an army of warriors, but one habitual thought.  But now that I am on the race,  all the old familiar voices are a thousand miles away, and all the rest of my constants are gone. Now could be the time for some new thoughts. What if I dared to believe that I was as beautiful as God says I am.  What if I believed I was as loved, or worthy.  How would that change me?  How would that change you, if you did the same? 

I can only imagine the joy and the glory.  And I look forward to believing it.   I’d run there if I could.  But my heart is a fickle thing that grows and scars as it pleases. So I’ll have to wait a little longer.  One day God will tell me for the hundredth, millionth time that I am beautiful, and I will believe Him.  But as I grab my mirror for the morning, I realize unfortunately today is not that day. Here comes the mascara.  There, that looks better.  And as my underbunk mate asks for my face powder at 630 in the morning, I understand I am not alone.   

If you have enjoyed this post, please consider donating to my trip! I still have to raise $3304.   Click here  and donate. Every dollar matters!     Blessings to you all!   

To be honest with you all, the thing that scared me most about the World Race, were the other racers.  Conceptually speaking I was terrified of walking into a situation of 130 hopped up church camp zealots, much less having to live with them for a year.   What would that do to me?  How would that  change me?  Could I handle it for 11 months without committing a felony?

Well after living in community for the first time in my whole life, let me say everyday I am struggling, and everyday I am excelling. 

                Luckily my fears of Jesus freaks were unfounded.  I have yet to be bible thumped, or churched up.  The simple truth is that the people I travel with are passionately motivated to share the freedom of living like Jesus.  Which means they love, they teach, they encourage, they support and they heal.  They are not judgmental, over bearing, didactic, or charismatic.  They care fiercely for each other, and work out their lives together.  We have laughed together, cried together, fallen apart together, and rebuilt together.  And we haven't even begun to do ministry yet.   For the past week we have just been sharing our lives, and drawing closer as families of 6 and 7.

                Space is limited.  I have my single bunk bed, which I share with my mosquito net and my entire back pack.  There is no air conditioning, but God has blessed us with fans and a refrigerator and 2 showers!  It is hot, it is cramped, and sometimes my crankiness comes out at my lack of "me" time. There are three balconies which are the place to be, and space is often fought for because of the cool breezes that go through there.  I am doing laundry by hand, drying it by line.  I have already managed to rip the rear off of one of my only 2 pairs of ministry pants.  I have fallen or tripped approximately 198714 times on the uneven roads and sidewalks.  So I'm still working on being a graceful woman of god.

                Tomorrow we will start our ministry.  We met our organizer today, Pastor Tony (who speaks zero English), and found out that we will be working with another team to do VBS and sports ministry in the Barraconnes Slums. This area is known for hopelessness and despair, so please be lifting it up in prayer.  Every day we will travel there in the morning to teach children English, love and hold them and pray with parents and grandparents.  In the afternoons we will travel back again to do additional work and play sports and games. 

                My team is spectacular.  Seriously.  I feel like the luckiest woman in the house.  Yesterday, after scary nightmares and just being in a general funk mood, they literally drug me out of the house to play basketball and baseball with some neighborhood children. They changed my entire day, just by noticing and caring enough to move me. They curl up in bed with me if I cry, they throw an arm around me if we are laughing. I can barely stop hugging or holding them all.  We have now all officially shared our testimonies with each other, and I feel privileged to be entrusted with their family secrets and personal broken places.  They are slowly dragging me out of myself, although there is still much that they don't know.  I can't wait to spend 11 months really showing who I am for the first time.  Like Daniel told me, "I'm just going to go all in."  So be praying for that.   Be also praying for our house, that it would be a place of rest.  Be praying that we would have the patience to deal with each other despite it being July in a hot house, with 44 others.  Be praying for community, as some of the teams are really struggling and working through personalities and identity.   Be praying for successful ministries in the places we are going.  Be praying for the Dominican Republic. Be praying that we would be furthering the hope and joy of God wherever our feet lead.  And finally, be praying for our brothers and sisters in Haiti.  

If you have enjoyed this post, please consider donating to my trip! I still have to raise $3304.   Click here  and donate. Every dollar matters!     Blessings to you all!