Faith, Trust, & A 60 Hour Travel Day

I’m Still Alive!

It turns out that traveling the world, moving cities every two weeks and countries every month is, contrary to popular belief, quite exhausting. Thus, finding time to write about what is going on has proven to be a bit more difficult than anticipated. Alas, I have returned to say, God has been working and I will do my best to sum up some of the highlights from the last few months. 

That being said, please have grace on me, some stories may be out of order and I will be playing catch up for the next few weeks to keep you guys up to date on what has happened. 

 

First things first. During my hiatus I finally got fully funded! The way God provides never ceases to amaze me and His goodness shines in that I was funded just prior to the cut off date for our squad. That being said, there are still plenty of people who still have fundraising to do, so if you wish to donate, please feel free to find someone on the squad that is still in need of funding or ask me and I would be more than happy to point you to those who are still in need. 

 

Secondly, I want to share with you the way God provides. 

 

He is SO faithful. And sometimes in order to truly see this, you have to take a leap of faith. 

 

So I’ll set the scene: 

Here is Madie, she has just become a Team Leader and received all of 2 hours of training on the roll. I am in Kosovo and it is my responsibility to ensure my team makes it safely to Ukraine for our ATL month.

 

It’s November 14th, after a full day of debrief, we pack quickly (I have done this so many times at this point that its second nature) and arriving at the airport at midnight. We have a 4am flight, a 6 hour layover and another 3 hour flight to land us in Lviv, Ukraine at about 5:30pm. 

 

Thankfully, I had peraranged a place to stay that night so we got a taxi there and after a little bit we then began looking for how we were going to be transporting ourselves the 600 miles to Dnipro the next day. 

 

I know you’re wondering why I hadn’t started this process before that time, and that’s a reasonable question. The answer is, the budget. We hadn’t received our money that we needed or the budget that we needed to use for that month, and me, being a brand new Team Leader didn’t have another budget to compare it to so I had no way of organizing this prior to 8pm when I finally received said budget and started finding offers for places to stay and modes of transportation. 

 

Needless to say, I am praying. A lot. 

 

Upon looking at Dnipro, the city we are headed to, I realize, nothing is in our budget. In fact most places are double the budget. 

 

So, we got to work. I had messaged every Air bnb, every Hostel and every hotel in the city and asked if they would be willing to meet our budget. 

I got a few responses, mostly no’s and eventually I passed out, praying for something to come through.  

 

The next morning we had to check out of our place and, still having no real plan, got a Taxi to yhe train station and hoped there would be a train with enough open spots for us to make it there. Thankfully there was one heading all the way to Dnipro that day at 3:30pm.  We get on for our 18 hour train, still not sure we will have a place to stay when we arrive 

 

Now I realize how insane this sounds, why would I ever do this, how could I put myself in a situation like this? It was hour 35 of our travel day and I really didn’t have the mental capacity to make sound decisions because of the severe sleep deprivation, and yet this wasn’t a product of that.

 

The only thing I can say is that God had been faithful thus far and I knew that He would be faithful again. I had been put in precarious situations regularly on this race and I have learned that my God is big enough to provide when He is calling me somewhere. 

I knew He was calling me to Dnipro and He is faithful, so I trusted His lead and we went. 

 

Now. One of the benefits of our train being 18 hours long, is it allowed for plenty of time to pray that God would provide. 

 

And at 9pm (6 hours into our ride) I got a text from one of the Air BNB’s saying that she was able to move around some reservations and have an apartment for us in our budget! 

And on top of it, this was a prime location, downtown, in a really nice apartment, with beds for all of us. 

It was incredible, I sat there in awe of our God and how He has continued to be faithful with everything I have trusted him with. And yet i remember almost laughing because I had known that something would come through. It wasn’t a surprise, He is faithful, always, and this was exactly where He wanted us to be. 

 

We finally arrived at the apartment after our 60 hour travel “day”, utterly exhausted, and utterly blown away that I, Madie Busey, just did something that absolutely crazy, and My God was faithful yet again. 

 

If you know me at all you will understand the incredible nature of this leap of faith. I am 100% a planner, I do not take risks, and I do not do crazy things like traveling 600 miles on a train with no lodging on the other side, especially with 4 other people who are relying on me to arrange these things. 

 

But I am sharing this experience because it shows how much I needed to do this. I never would have been able to trust God as much as I do now, if I had never allowed myself to face a situation I have no control over. 

 

And it is in those moments, when you have given everything you can and you are left with absolutely nothing, that the abundance, faithfulness and goodness of God can shine the brightest.