For your enjoyment I have posted below the video that Monica and Priscilla created for our Final Banquet:

It's still hard to believe I'm home. I mean, eleven days isn't all that long. I'm still getting used to how life works back here in the good ol' US of A, I'm still not over my jetlag or caught up on all the sleep I lost in the last year, and I'm still working on adjusting to life at home. Some days I feel so tired and emotional that I don't know what to do. Some days are fairly easy to get through and then others are harder than I thought they would be. Some days I just miss my team and the squad and being able to sit down with someone and have a heart-to-heart conversation. I also miss the foreign languages - I guess I just got used to people not understanding most of what I said.  

There are definitely things that are different for me now than they were before the Race: I've been really paying attention to water usage and I'll turn the water off if I think someone's been running it for too long. I'm way more gracious with my siblings (at least for now!). My schedule is pretty open right now so I'm saying "yes" to a lot of things whereas before I was so busy that "no" was a huge word in my vocabulary.

There are also things that are pretty much the same as before (and on) the Race: I have a large family so "alone time" is virtually non-existent. If I really want to have a good cry I feel like I can't because someone is likely to see me and start asking questions when I just want to be left alone. I have to fight daily to make sure that I have my personal time with God. The key to avoiding/solving most problems is COMMUNICATION.
                     

                

Even though the World Race is over for us, our personal "races" are not. We are called to "run the race in such a way as to gain the prize" and that is true whether we feel like we are in strong community or fighting battles on our own. I will continue to be lifting up my brothers and sisters from J Squad daily as we continue to pursue Christ in our "post-Race" lives.

Thank you all so much for following my blog throughout this year. I don't know how much I'll be posting on here in the future, but I appreciate your faithfulness in keeping me in your prayers. God Bless!!!

~Brenda

             
(pictures by Sam Mongonia, Priscilla Cheng, and Brenda Benson)         

I'm heading home from the World Race and experiencing a wide array of emotions, thoughts, feelings, etc. Please pray that God will give me the grace and wisdom I need to readjust to life at home for a while. I can't really put into words just yet what this year has meant to me, so I also want to ask for grace from all of you as I readjust to life back home.

Thank you for all your prayers throughout this year; and for those who will be at home or at my sister's wedding on Saturday I will see you in a couple days!!

Rewarding: There is a YWAM team here living/working with us (they work the afternoon shift at the cafe) and in talking to one of the girls the other night she really got us fired up about the crazy ways God answers prayer. After our conversation Priscilla and I started talking about the things we still want to see God do in our last few days here. The next morning Team Redeemed and Emmi, our contact, made a list of 16 prayer requests - some outrageous and some not so much - that we are expecting God to answer, separated into three categories: before we leave Chiang Mai, before we leave Thailand, and before we actually arrive home. This is a practical, tangible way that we can keep our focus here and on God's work, and we look forward to the daily praises this prayer list brings as some of these prayers are already being answered!

Thank you for your continued prayers as we serve God here in Thailand.

There's this workout program going around the J Squad called Insanity. The drill sergeant - Shaun-T - has this mantra that he says whenever we small people are getting tired and laying on the floor. It's "Dig Deeper". It means that we need to breathe deeper, work harder, and find the strength inside us to continue. It doesn't always work; in fact, it mostly doesn't as we are in 90+ degree heat and have no way to add extra protein or anything else into our diet. Chelsea and I both have experienced light-headedness and other things that have made us re-think our daily workout commitment for this month, but that's beside the point.

I was thinking the other day, though, that we're 10+ months into this Race and we only have a few short weeks left. We are having to fight through each day when we feel weak, exhausted and ready to go home, and it came to me that we really have to "dig deeper" into our faith and the reasons we're here and press on. We have a strength inside us - the Holy Spirit - that none can match. We really do have the strength, and with Him we can do anything. It doesn't matter that we get up early each morning and then are out until after 12. It doesn't matter whether or not we really love what we're doing. What matters is that we are here because God has called us to be and if we allow Him, He will give us the strength to make it to the end. We literally have days left. Let's push into the sprint at the end of the race and give it all we've got and more. Let's "DIG DEEPER" and finish this Race well!

Life is short; don't take it for granted. Live with eternity in mind. You don't know if you'll have tomorrow. How many times have we all heard these sayings and many more, and didn't think twice about it? We all know that we're going to die someday, but no one wants to think that it might be today.

Well, we really don't know when our last day on earth will be.

On Sunday morning in Cambodia, so Saturday night back home, the dad of one of my teammate's died. It was unexpected. As a matter of fact he had just been cleared by his doctor to resume normal activity after having had heart surgery last month. Over the course of this year we have seen the relationship between this father and daughter grow and develop into something precious. She had been praying for him in different areas and had seen major growth and changes happening in his life. They were making plans to hang out together after the Race and were even planning the big hugs they would give each other at the airport. Their's was a really special relationship. The last time they talked was before we left for our last village in Cambodia on May 21. A few of us heard snippets of the conversation and we laughed at how goofy they were together. He was an amazing man, a great father and grandfather, and most importantly he loved the Lord with all of his being.

As we have mixed up and changed teams in preparation for separate girl's and guy's ministry this month we are now having to move on without a key member of our team. I feel like there's a hole in my heart and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way. She'll be back for our final debrief, but her final month of ministry will be one that will continue after the rest of us return home and get re-acclimated to "normal" life. Her new "normal" is one that none of us ever thought we'd have to face.

We have left our homes and loved ones for nearly a year of serving God overseas, trusting that He will take care of things back home. We are under serious spiritual attack and we haven't even "officially" started our ministry for the month. We will be working with men and women in the sex industry here in Thailand: in Chiang Mai and Phuket. God has some amazing things planned because it seems that Satan is working overtime to distract us in any way possible, from illnesses to divorces to deaths to weird family issues to worries about the future to anything else he can think of.
PLEASE KEEP US ALL IN YOUR PRAYERS!! We brothers and sisters of J Squad are all committed to pressing on through trials, challenges, fatigue, etc. to see His Kingdom come here in Thailand this month. We want to finish the race well but we need your help. DON'T STOP PRAYING.

This month our work has included a lot of children's ministry. From teaching Sunday School to teaching English to just playing with them we've spent a lot of time with kids. As soon as we arrived back from our second village we had a meeting with Karen, the Teams Coordinator at New Life Fellowship, the church that we were working under this month, for feedback and discussion.

When I was asked what my highlights of the month were I answered that it was the kids. In both villages we had extensive contact with children, both formal and informal, and I said that it was very apparent how hungry the kids are to be loved and to know more about God and His Word. Karen then told us about the 4-14 Window. It is a relatively new term, but it represents the fact that about 70 percent of the world's children ages 4-14 live inside the 10-40 Window, the countries that have the largest unreached people groups in the world. These children are the future leaders of their countries and our world and they need to hear about Jesus!

She explained that as part of New Life's ministry in Phnom Penh they have workers going to the slums and the dump every week to hold Sunday Schools and VBS type ministries and many of the kids want to come to the church on Sundays but there's not enough room. New Life uses two building's roof spaces for the children's Sunday School on Sundays and there is no extra space for more kids. The best they can do for those kids right now is to keep sending workers to them, but even then there aren't enough people to reach all the kids. I nearly started crying as I realized the ramifications of what she was saying: "These kids need to hear about Jesus, but there's no space in the church and there aren't enough people who care to go tell them about Him and practically live out His love". 

I am so glad for the part that our World Race teams have played in the lives of kids around the world but sometimes the job seems so big: there are so many more kids in the world who haven't heard about Jesus yet. Romans 10:14-15a says, "How are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?"

My challenge is this: Don't overlook the importance the children of today have in the world of tomorrow. If you have any children in your life at all, don't waste the opportunity to change their lives for eternity by sharing Christ's love with them today. Is there enough room in your heart to love a child with the love of Christ?