Dear Gap E, also known as the Church

It all started with a group of 30 teenagers. Humble in our lack of life lived and hungry with youthful hearts. It all started with a simple yes, a yes that didn’t have an outline of to be experiences or a trajectory of the days to come. A yes that only promised a year of wholeness. We each brought our own tools and soon realized our empty hands and humble hearts where the best tools we could bring.

It all started with a realization of need. A confession of lacking that lingered in each of our hearts. Nervous hellos that turned into belly laughs and walking into any room that we were in and it feeling like home. 

It all started with vulnerability, vulnerability that bound us together, and as a tender part of us was exposed, others would cover it up with a hug and genuine smile.

It all started with a squad that danced together, wept together, worshipped together, cried to the heavens together and lived in the mundane together. 

Through each of these 30 unique and beautiful faces I have experienced more depth than I thought was imaginable. Each person showing a glimpse of the Father’s cheek. 

…

As the days start to become warmer and longer, I am reminded of the brevity of the race. In two short weeks, I will be going home, all packed up with stained clothes and pockets full of divine moments. I will be flying home to be waking up in a real bed without 30 other people laying around me. I will be going to the grocery store alone for the first time in nine months. I will be continuing without the familiar faces that I learned to call family, glued to my hip. It’s all so surreal.

When I look back on the past nine months, my vision is blurred with smelly clothes and laughing for longer than I thought was possible, it’s stained with colorful nights of spontaneity and big dreams. I still feel the cold nip of North Georgia air at night on my nose as Josh plays guitar under the stars and we worship with the slight smell of porta potties in the distance. I smell the unbaked cookies we made and eat on the kitchen floor in Ecuador where we sat in a circle and poured our hearts to each other. I see the shadows of my best friends on the wall in Guatemala as they dance and sing and laugh with the Lord. 

When I think of the race, I think of them. It’s all them. 

Those 30 teenagers who each found a way to crawl into the deep crevasse’s of my heart and camp out for awhile. This raw, authentic and beautiful community has taught me what the Church is supposed to look like. 

I remember the first time that our squad put on squad church, we didn’t really have nice clothes to wear so we all sat down on the ground with dirty bare feet and the nicest clothes we could find. We made a little downstairs office with no windows into the closest glimpse to Heaven I’ve got. Despite the smell of dirty feet, we worshipped with genuine hearts and eager spirits, we got up and shared with each other in courage and trust. I remember falling asleep in my little tent that night, astonished that this is how it actually could be. 

This is true and raw church. 

People who really don’t have anything in common other than the fact that they love God. People who are humble and eager. People who are less concerned with what is right and wrong and more concerned with what is good. People who are easy to hug hello and hard to hug goodbye. 

So much apprehensiveness to Jesus is caused from a culture in church that focuses on religion when Jesus came to tear religion down and replace it with love. So many people run away from God when they are really just running away from the false doctrines that the church preaches. The character of Jesus gets shaded with the judgement of the church. It breaks my heart that the heart of the Father gets clouded with the fog of humanity. 

I got a glimpse of the kingdom and it looks nothing like a big stage with speakers that encourage eyes of judgement and exclusivity. It looks like an old couch with 7 women who sit there for 5 hours just talking about how good Jesus is and jumping up and down. It’s looks like all nighters in a little room, with coffee and paints were we worshipped all in our own ways for hours on end. It looks like humility, vulnerability, love and honesty. 

The biggest gift that the World Race has given me is a family that is bonded through the Blood of Jesus. A community that breaks down the walls of religion and rebuilds it with a city of love.  

…

Dear Gap E, my words fall miserably short but my tongue is easily filled with praise. Thank you for being my home. Thank you for making bus rides, kitchen tables, open fields, busy markets, and tops of volcanoes feel like home. Thank you for showing me a glimpse of heaven and learning how to dance in the Kingdom of God together. By the grace of God, 30 empty hands turned into the redemption of the Church. I cannot wait to see a world where religion melts into relationship and judgement turns into humility, and it all starts with those 30 faces I now call family. 

Thank you Gap E, you make Heaven tangible.