My Last Day on the World Race

Today is November 20th, my last full day on the world race. Surreal. Tomorrow we board a plane from Cape Town, South Africa and by the 22nd I will be standing in my parents home in PA; a place I haven’t been to in nearly a year.

Right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop; Bootleggers, a coffee shop I’ve inhabited daily during my week here in Cape Town. This place represents a weeks worth of quiet mornings spent with the Lord and coffee. It represents conversations with close friends and prayers over each other.

As I sit here, headphones in, across from some friends that I love, I can’t help but think how natural this feels. The hours, mornings, and nights spent with people I love sitting around a table this year is a number that can only possibly be counted by the Lord. I’m humbled. I’m humbled when I think of all the spaces and all the places around the world that have become home to me, whether it was a coffee shop for a week or a tent for two months. Wow, is the Lord good.

Last night we had a worship night with the whole squad, crammed in a wonky shaped corner of yet another hostel. Worshiping with these 40 some people has actually marked my year. The amount of prayers, praise, and songs lifted up to the Lord with this group of people is an impossible to count number. Sitting there singing so hard my voice began to hurt, I was shot straight into reminiscing mode.

I remember praising the Lord with these people on the beaches of Costa Rica, on concrete and dusty steps in Guatemala, on wooden benches we cut down and made ourselves in Honduras, on a roof in New Jersey, in a church in Romania, on a sweet porch in Albania, in a comfortable living room in South Africa, and under the stars in Lesotho. I’m different because of these moments.

My friends are annointed in worship. My friends know what it looks like to offer their lives to the Lord in worship. I looked around at all of these friends that I love deeply and I began to grieve the fact that likely, that would be the last time, this side of heaven that I would worship in a room with this exact group of people. Praise the Lord for the opportunity. From October of last year singing around a fire in Georgia with these people until today, the Lord has MOVED immensly.

Let me explain to you what a miracle this group of people is. Imagine a year full of living with people nonstop. You are living in tight quarters, everyone has different opinions and ways of showing them, you are all literally NEVER alone, some people are messy and some are clean, some are righteous challengers and some are humbly passive. We spent hours upon hours together, we saw each other in the super vulnerable times, the highs, and the frustrations. We actually have had every opportunity to hate eachother, to be worse off than when we started. What is crazy is that when I look around this room, at the people who are some of my best friends in the world now, at the people I’ve had my differences with, and at some of the people I have only spend short seasons with, I can’t imagine loving them more. I see Jesus in every single one of them.

Only the Lord could take a group of people so insanely different and sow such deep love in all of them.
In my quiet time this morning, I read a few verses of Scripture that are absolutely speaking to my heart. In 2 Corinthians 4: 5-6 it says this: “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

This verse is wrecking me today because it proclaims the purpose of this year, the purpose of our lives; to not preach about ourselves but to focus our eyes on Jesus, to make His name known. The apostle Paul’s intention in preaching was to bring men to Jesus, not to simply make moral changes in men. God gives us the knowledge of Himself and it is our responsibility to share it, our priviledge. Boy, have I seen the face of Jesus this year!

If you continue onto verse 7 I says this: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” Thank You God for giving me the treasure of You in such a humble container of this year. It is ALL about You.

As I reflect on January until now I can see that I am different; this is so far from a testament to myself. I’m leaving South Africa and coming home as a person that I’m hoping is a bigger reflection of Jesus and a lesser picture of Courtney Rodgers. Because of what God has done in and through me this year I am coming home as a better communicator, a better friend, a better daughter, a better picture of boldness, a better disciple.

Just as Paul was proclaiming in the passage in 2 Corinthians, I hope that I get the opportunity to continue to make the name of Jesus and only the name of Jesus known. I am different now, but I hope I can take a look at myself in a year from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now and continue to not recognize myself because of the work the Lord is doing in me.

So when I get home this is my one request; ask me all the questions. I can’t wait to share the stories of seeing the face of Jesus, and hearing all of your stories from the last year. If you’re reading this, here is your written invitation for you to text me right now so I can take you for coffee and continue my favorite practice of sharing a meal around a table with the Lords children. Seriously open invitation, text me right now.

To all my supporters, what you have invested in has been a multiplication of the population of souls in heaven for eternity, and in my own knowledge and intimacy of the Lord; priceless. This year has been a gift I can never repay, what a mini example of the gospel of abundance and grace. The Lord is good, the Lord is good, the Lord is GOOD! I can’t wait for whatever He has to show me next.

Here is a bunch of random photos of my sweet community from the last two weeks: