How was your year?

That’s a question we’ve been asked a lot lately.  The first word that comes to my mind is weird.  That feels like an inadequate answer being that everyone’s year has been weird and that our “normal” travel life is already strange, but I haven’t been able to come up with a better summary.  However, it helps when I can give some context.  A few days ago a few our team members put together a list of some of the ways in which this year has been different for us.  Here’s what we came up with:

• Housed in 3 different camps
• Called two different church buildings our home (team members actually slept in the church facility)
• Helped out with a Father/Son and Ladies retreat (not on our original schedule)
• Served at a farm (a ministry to special needs children)
• Cancelled or rescheduled 8 different churches
• Served at a Cowboy church
• Conducted a City-wide event that turned into a team retreat
• Held a conference outside under a tent
• Quarantined team members on 7 different occasions
• Continued serving with up to 10 people from our team in quarantine

Some of this was fun and unique and helped to bring our team closer together. However, the space between the lines was tremendously challenging and some of it is hard to define.  For each one of these changes there were dozens of details that had to be ironed out, often on the fly with only a few hours to resolve.  Each adjustment took an emotional toll on the team. We learned to live with feeling of “what’s coming next?”  It was difficult to be excited about anything because we didn’t know if it would be cancelled or not. As you might imagine this caused a lot of stress and anxiety that we had to help our team navigate.

Along the way we adopted a saying, “God must have something better!” Lori was reading in 2 Peter 3 where the author reminds us that the Lord isn’t slow about accomplishing his purposes.  If things aren’t going according to our timeline or in the way we think they should doesn’t mean that God’s plan is delayed. We saw several situations where he was working in ways that we didn’t see coming:

• A host family that had to be quarantined met with God in a way that wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t been forced to be together
• We were able to provide helping hands, in answer to prayer, for a ministry in need of manual labor
• Testimony from a team member: “God has shown me my emptiness and my complacent heart. I’m tired of living that way. I honestly don’t think I would’ve felt this conviction if I hadn’t been quarantined.”
• Encouragement and inspiration for a church and surrounding community that wasn’t on the schedule, “We feel like we’re experiencing revival”

Honestly, this weird year has been exhausting, but we’re thankful for the lessons learned, the ways we’ve seen God move and for a little margin before we head into the summer schedule.  We have found ourselves more tired and worn out at the end of this travel year than previous years and so we are beyond grateful for those who have prayed for us through it all. Thank You!