Our Xtreme Journey teams (mostly college students) began their summer journey on May 18. The following update is from our team leader in Central Asia. This is her second summer to lead a team to this remote village location.

We are leaving for the village in the morning, so I wanted to send out a quick update before I’m away from internet access for an unknown amount of time. We’ve had a wonderful few days of training, so I feel way more “prepared” than I did last year. Prepared is in quotations because I don’t think you can ever really be prepared for anything in this country. I’m sure it will be another summer full of crazy experiences, lots of learning, and a ton of Russian. There has already been a ton of Russian. I still do not understand it. Since I don’t really have much to update you on yet, because we’ve been training since we got here, I’ll give some specific pr points for the next couple months.

– Joy. That our team will fight for it and recognize that it comes not from our circumstances or personal success/failure but from the Father, who is unchanging.

– Unity. We will be in very close quarters in an environment that demands humility. Ask that we would function as a healthy extension of the body, that we would speak nothing but love to one another, and that the people we live alongside would know we are his children by the way we love each other.

– The people. Ask that Father would soften hearts and call these people to himself in his perfect timing, and that they would respond in obedience. The work here has been going on for a very long time, and we are getting to see some exciting movements of the father. Ask that these would continue and that father would be praised and glorified among this people.

– Health. If there’s anything that will sap your energy and will to work, it’s being sick. Ask that our team would be as healthy as father wants us to be, and that even if we are not that we would still be lights and that we would depend on him and work through it with joy.

– For me personally, pr against pride and control. These manifest themselves in so many ways in my life, and I learned last year that the village is the perfect environment for them to pop up in the most unhelpful places. I hate to be the one who doesn’t know the answers, I hate doing things I’m not good at, and I hate being weak. All of these things come back to my desire for control, which stems from pride that I can even have control in the first place. It’s really dumb. I obviously can’t do this on my own, so I’m earnestly asking you to come alongside me and ask that father would protect me from this desire to replace him with myself. I’m so grateful that he’s working on me and showing me grace despite my stupidity, but I need all the pr I can get.