So much has happened since last week!

Since the beginning of this trip, I have been praying that God would help grow me deeper in my faith. It seems that every week that goes by I have been partnering with Jesus to make sure that happens.

At one of the care-points that I was at this week,

I found out that one of the kids speaks pretty good English and we’ve been having pretty good conversations since. This kid had so much to say that I couldn’t get his name. He has been very expressive and helps me translate what the other kids are saying sometimes.

All 17 members of my squad and I have been learning the Swazi language to be able to better communicate with the locals we serve with each week. Some of the words I’ve been learning are ‘sawubona’ which means ‘hello’ (to one person), ‘sanibonani’ which means ‘hello’ (to more than one) and ‘jesu uyakutsandza’ which means ‘Jesus loves you.’ I am trying to challenge myself to learn more of the Swazi language everyday. One of the other racers named Matthew has been excelling in learning Swazi and using it to connect with kids at our care-point.

Sleeping has been quite a challenge, we have beds, but it is very hot and humid every night. I feel very blessed to have melatonin at hand to make sure I get decent sleep. I am very thankful that my mother thought of getting me a sleeping bag liner. It serves as a great fitted sheet for the tiny mattress that I have.

To remedy the heat and humidity at night, my squad-lead Ben and I both bought rotating fans for the guys room. It was until we returned to our homestead that we realized that the fans were only friendly to European outlets. Luckily, several of us had power adapters that have a European friendly plugin. We then plugged those adapters into the South African adapter… needless to say this was a firm example of how flexible and prepared we all have to be on this trip.

I continue to ask all of my supporters to pray for me each and every day, as I am walking deeper in my faith with the Lord. It has been quite a process to have to depend on the Lord for all I need. We are all challenging ourselves with a disciplined budget for food each week, and I’ve been depending on the Lord when I’m hungry between meals.

The other day, we all sat around a room and each drew a name of one person in our squad. We then took some time to pray over what God wanted us to write in a letter that we would give to that person. I was given a letter from one of my two squad-leads Mak and the lord put the passage John 20 on her heart. A big part of that passage talks about Jesus’ disciple Thomas, who wanted proof that He has risen. Mak wrote in her letter to me that I reminded her of Thomas because I want to be sure of every step I take in my faith, just as he did.