Dear Racers,

We have met once, briefly, at Parent Launch. You were filled with excitement - it was bubbling out of you so visibly you could hardly contain it. Some of you were sad, leaving behind parents and siblings. Others were nervous, stepping into a room full of strangers who would somehow become your people. I was one of many you met that day, there for a short time, making a quiet promise to try and take care of your parents while you were away.

If we are lucky enough, I get to visit you on the field around month seven - and when I do, I get to bring the people who love you most.

This letter is for all of you - Racers with parents here this week, and Racers without. Every single one of you.

I felt it, coming into that week. My fourth country in two months. I have been home fifteen days in that time - fifteen days. And while I was on my knees during worship on that first night, somewhere in the middle of a song, I thought of you - all of you - and what you do not know you give me.

I don't know if I told you this, but I am in love with my home. It sits on a lake - a lake I looked at for years and dreamt of a home there. It has the most perfect sunsets. Last year I was home a total of forty-five days. In our first year of marriage. Why? Because God called me out to the mission field. At times I have felt the weight of that. Leaving my children. Leaving our home. At times leaving my husband. The travel. The energy it requires. Whew, it is a lot.

You guys don't have children yet, but I pray when you do, you are as in love with them as I am with mine. To leave them - even at their ages - it aches me. My oldest struggles at times with things only a mom can fix. A simple I miss you, Momma tells me everything. She's a new ER nurse and a record-breaking high school lacrosse coach. To not be there when she lost her first patient. To not be on the sidelines at her Regional game. That is not me - I have always been there, never missing a moment. But God called me into the uncomfortable, for His Kingdom, for you, for your parents.

Her sister - the Racer - is a survivor. So strong, so stubborn, but still my baby. It scares me to leave her. She is a rockstar - house sitting, dog sitting, working two jobs, in school, often taking care of her older sister. But she breaks too, at times. Times when I have always been there to catch her when she stumbles. My other two - my bonus ones - I love as fiercely as the others. Our relationship growing closer and closer the more moments we have together. To miss their last lacrosse games. To not be sitting with my sweet Mady when she comes home from school. To not be able to braid her hair. It aches me all the same.

Right before a trip, without fail, some worldly distraction finds its way in. Something pulls at my focus, blurs the edges of why I go. And then I get there.

You all bared your soul that week. And I feel that out of respect, I should bare mine to you.

I got there, and I acknowledged the gap in my heart. And then the first night I worshipped with you, I realized - you may not even know it, but you are filling that aching gap. You see me. You know. And I am in awe of the Racer in all of you. So in tune. So intentional. So perceptive. So Christ-like.

The outpouring of love you have for Jesus - it does not stay contained to you. It radiates. It reaches across the room and finds me, and something in me that was fraying comes back together. My children do not seem that far away. The week does not seem that long. The thousands of miles do not seem that far. And I remember what got me here - and then I giggle at God. Because while I think this is my mission field, He has me as a part of it too. I am being worked on. Right here, alongside you.

To see how strong you all are - strong enough to be here, to say yes, to go against family at times, to struggle and still stand - I am so proud of you. And you're not even my children. To watch you stand so fiercely on stage next to your parents, knowing some of the hurt you carry today is because of them. I ache for my own mistakes, the ones my children will carry. I am so grateful my children know Jesus the way you do. And I pray they extend the same grace to their father and to me as you have extended to your parents. To watch you unfold as your parents hit their knees. To watch you become the role model to them. To change their lives. To break curses and trajectories of the future. This is why we are here. And oh - to know you in ten years. To know your children. I cannot wait.

And you guys - you have loved me so well.

You turned to my husband, who I clearly think hung the moon, and you have needed him. And you have prayed over me. And him. We do not take those prayers lightly. They break me every time. It never gets old. In the middle of your own family stuff, your own hard, you are there kneeling beside me - because you listened when God said go, that tired looking woman, go pray over her, shower her, acknowledge her. And you fill my cup. My always-running-on-empty cup. (and a select few of you have given me wonderful giggles and the honorable title of "Babe of the Week")

You see the love Joe and I share - for the Lord and for each other - and you tell me about it. And you have no idea how much that matters. Because there are times the Enemy works hard on me. Who are you, who are you to guide parents, to stand here, to be a role model to a younger generation? There are times old lies come back and haunt me. You are not worthy. You haven't done much at all. You are not truly loved.

And then I get here. And God gives me you.

All of you. To love and be loved. My family. My new people. I want to take every single one of you home with me and share our world with you. You have moved me. Filled me. You have taken up space right next to where my children sit in my heart. And I mean that - you have family in Joe and me. That does not end when this week ends. I pray for grace for you - grace from your parents, the same grace I pray my own children extend to me. I am so thankful they know Jesus. I am so thankful you know Jesus. Because it is only by Him that any of this - the leaving, the aching, the gap, the filling - makes any sense at all.

And I want you to know - Joe and I will forever be impacted, changed, driven, motivated, inspired, and lit up by you. That is not something we will carry lightly. That is something we will carry always.