Posted in General Posts by kaitlyn Wood on 11/19/2011
Friends and Family,
As you know, I have been traveling with the World Race for 5 months now. I have not blogged in a while and there is a reason for that. I have enjoyed traveling VERY much and have loved meeting people along the way, experiencing culture, food, and music. It has been worth every moment. However, I wanted to inform you that after MUCH prayer and consideration, I have left The World Race due to multiple reasons. I have been praying about this for a while now and I have felt the Lord move me into another season. Therefore, I have taken the necessary measures to leave the Race. Thank you for those who have supported me in prayer and/or financially.
It is wonderful being home with a family that embraces me and is loving me through this time. Thank you so much for all your prayers and thoughts while I have been away. Thank you for keeping up with me and loving me through the entire trip. It has meant more than you could possible know. To talk further about this or if you have any questions, please feel free to call me ( at home- dont have a phone yet) or email at the information provided below.
Email: kaitjwood@gmail.com
Phone: 615-794-5863
Much love and blessings, Kaitlyn Wood
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Posted in General Posts by kaitlyn Wood on 9/22/2011
Indian Train Experience!
Trains are not something I am accustomed to. However, my newest train experience will be an experience that will be engraved in my memories and in my heart forever. A 32 hour train ride from New Dehli, India downward to the southern trip to Ongole, India is not something you "get to do" in every lifetime. Man, I sure am lucky!
As I boarded the blue metal "box" with wheels, I grabbed onto the rusty metal "help me" bar and pulled myself up the steps with 70 lbs on my back. I quickly let go of the railing just in time to avoid the next hand to grab the rail- reminding myself to pull out my hand sanitizer asap when I got to sit down. As I followed my buddy Frank infront of me, (we shared the same cart), he stopped suddenly and threw his bag on a bench to the left. He turned and said, "this is it". I almost fainted. So I threw my stuff up to the top bunk on the left and climbed on up. At least I would have SOME personal space and my things wouldnt be so easily in view to be stolen; not to mention it was cleaner up there... less dirt. (so i thought).
( my thinking when I got on this train was impaired and extremely OCD- DISCLAIMER) haha
By this point, we had been traveling for about 3 days with very few hours of sleep and many time changes so I jumped to the top bunk with my 3 bags, hoodie, snacks, and hand sanitizer and fell asleep. When I woke up, we were 5 hours in and to my sheer excitement I had three fans blowing air on me! "Thank God!" I thought to myself. The sun had set by this point and I looked down from my bunk and began to analyze my new situaion.
Picture this:
I look down. There are two benches ( covered in about 2 in. of padding and vinyl covering) one of the left and one on the right. So on each wall, there was a potential to unfold three bunks, which would ultimately be six beds. BUT if the other people sharing your cart are not READY to sleep, you are plumb out of luck unfolding your bed because it was part of the bench everyone had to sit on. ( Unless you are on the top bunk... you always have a bed- yes.. im learning to be smart!) To my right, there were two more beds made into one bunk by the window. The good news is that the cart was about 8 of us and 6 of us were from the WR- that was fun. But there were two Indian men that had no idea what they were getting into- but ended up playing pictionary telephone, uno, and had great conversations with us.
I'm not going to lie, 32 hours was very long. But I do have some very memorable moments on that train. Some thoughts, some visuals, some joys, and a broken heart at the same time. Some things never become real until you see them with your own eyes, and thats how it is with me.
Because I had slept a little during the day, I was up pretty late that night. A friend of mine and I stayed up for a while letting the others sleep on the beds. We did not really talk, but just looked. We looked. We looked out the steel barred windows at the moon, at the rice patties, at the people, towns- both thinking almost the same thoughts ( I think). But for me, I was thinking while listening to Kim Hill's "consume me" ( her music is AMAZING and has been my soothing touch from the beginning of this trip). I was thinking, "Is this real? Am I really in the heart of India on a train from 1790 that may break down any second, with nothing but peanut butter, cipro, and hand sanitizer? I am INSANE! Ok, but I still have peace, I still have rest, I still have such faith that I am on an adventure of a lifetime and this is right. Since that moment I have not feared, I have not worried. I have loved it.
On the other hand, we would stop at train stations every half hour or so and I would scan the people, the station. People on the ground everywhere, dirt, filth, trash, newborn babies weighing no more than 2 kgs. Women would put their little hands through the steel bars on the train to ask for money trying to convince me the baby they were holding WAS in fact theirs and they needed money. I saw a man almost dead while everyone walked right over him. I have experienced a hemiplegic boy scoot down and sweep the dirt from my feet, look up at me to see if I would give him a couple rupees for the good deed he had done. Humbling. Horribly humbling. Makes you feel sick.
Once unloading the train, wherever we would go, people would just circle us and stare. They would get out their cameras and cell phones and take pictures and videos of us. I've never seen anything like it. Always being stared at is a new thing for me... as it would for most people- takes a little getting used to. The Indian people have been nothing but kind, sweet, loving, and extremely generious to us. I have loved this culture and the people that live in it. More coming soon. Check out pictures on facebook page.
love you all!!! kait
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Posted in General Posts by kaitlyn Wood on 9/20/2011
My teammate Olivia Haughey recently posted this blog and I strongly feel she is called to be on this journey with me and this squad. Please read:
In 20 days, my team will be heading out on a bus with other teams to Nepal.
We will pack our bags one last time together.
I won't have to lug around my life in two bags anymore. There won't be any more crazy travel days, squatty potties, community living, days without showering, using bottled water to brush teeth, throwing toilet paper in the trash, or communicating through hand gestures. I will say farewell to this family and say hello to my family back home. I am thankful for the time I have been given on this journey.
God has done great things inside of me. He has blessed me with opportunities that have encouraged and challenged me to go deeper with Him. So in 20 days (2 weeks) I will be on a plane to see all of you back home unless $2,000 comes in.
Although I miss and love all of you, I don't want to come home yet. I have been praying about it and I still feel like its God's will for me to continue on with my team. Right now, I am trying to rely on Him to provide the needed funds.
oliviahaughey.theworldrace.org
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Posted in General Posts by kaitlyn Wood on 9/6/2011
IF someone were to ask you, "WHO ARE YOU?" What would you say?
Is the person you are today different than the person you were say, two years ago?
For me, the answer to the second question is yes. I am different now than I was two years ago.
Why? Experience? Enviroment? Relationships?
The last week or so my team has been creatively putting together a "prayer yurt". A yurt ( whom we also named Kurt) is a historical Hungarian tent. Much like you would picture the type of tent Abraham set up for his camp in the days of old. Its fairly large and actually has a red wooden door on it to enter into. There are four prayer walls with include: the wailing wall ( in which to pin your heart cries and requests), a fishers of men wall ( in which you write the name of someone who does not know the Lord on a piece of paper and throw it into the net), a praise wall ( where you pin your heart songs and praises to the Lord), and a map of the nations ( where you pin your specific requests of a nation). There is also a prayer alter, many candles, incense, pillows and rugs. During the day it is a little warm, but at night after lighting the candles and being alone at three in the morning praying to the Lord, it is quite gorgeous.
During the prayer retreat over the weekend (4) days-ish- We all took 1-2 hour shifts praying in the yurt. Usually, my shift was any hour from 1-4 AM. Yes, during the day I was exhausted. But knowing I was committed to getting up in the middle of the night to pray, I just did it. On the third night, I started to feel and acknowledge the sweetness of His presence. There is just something about sacrificing your sleep to spend time with someone. Sleep is something VERY important to me. To sacrifice that, get sick, feel crappy for the next couple days was not really the result I was aiming for, but nonetheless, my spirit and soul felt revived and full.
I have been struggling with some inner demons for a while. I soon realized you can't fight them if you don't let them go. You cannot hold onto them while you say " I don't want you". I learned repentance in the yurt. I learned submission. I learned to become weak is to become strong. I learned that there are things that have become a part of my life that I hate and that I want to throw away because I know they only bring destruction to me and to those close to me.
Those things include the following: control, anger, gossip, manipulation, lack of compassion, lack of trust, jealousy.
That said, I am at rest and peace with that. It is the journey and time that produces goodness. Time is good for all things. The best part is that I have people around me that help me walk through it, and set amazing examples for me to follow. But I know God has started a good work in me and will keep working until the end.
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Posted in General Posts by kaitlyn Wood on 9/2/2011
Just another video, as usual. This is another view, a deeper view, into the lives of the children we had the opportunity to love on at camp. This is the reality we see. Yes, we have fun! Yes, we give hugs! Yes, we sing! But we also cry....
Feel free to participate with us.
Who will love me? from Olivia Haughey on Vimeo.
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Posted in General Posts by kaitlyn Wood on 8/31/2011
The Vision
The vision?
The vision is JESUS- obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people. You see bones? I see an army.
And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisions.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldnt even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport. People write their addressess in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up on the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure. Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Ssatan games. This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great "Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the UNDERGROUND. The whisper of history in the making foundations- shaking revolutionaries dreaming- once again mystery is scheming in whispers conspiracy is breathing....
This is the sound of the underground and the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tatoo on their back boasts "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24-7-365.
Whatever it takes they will give: breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside. On the outside? they hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide. Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives- swap seats with the man on death row- guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair. With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them. Their DNA transfusion with JESUS. ( He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings, They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdos!
Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here comes the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it willc ome easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3-D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great "Amen!" from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
- Pete Greig- Author of RedMoonRising.
Any thoughts?
Any thoughts?
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Posted in General Posts by kaitlyn Wood on 8/29/2011
Being put with six other girls that you dont know for 11 months can be challenging.... but we have been facing it and trying to break through the walls.... FULL ON......
ps. peanut butter is GOLD... so we buy it all....
Bri and I getting closssssseeee.....doesnt seem to bother her.... i like it.
Pec, Hungary. its comin' alone folks.... :)
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Posted in General Posts by kaitlyn Wood on 8/29/2011
Christian Kids Camp - Hungary Style!!
Thanks to camp last week, the only hungarian words i know are tea- eggs- and rock. paper.scissors.
Tea - Tea
Eggs- Tojás
Rock - ku
Paper- papir
Scissors - ollo
Very tough. As you can tell.
Anways!
Last week two of my other teamates and I assisted in the background work of a children's christian camp at a beautiful camp site a couple miles away. This was the fourth year that they have had camp. The camp consisted of 21 children from the ages of 4-15- ( very broad!) The girls and I mainly served food, background kitchen things, preparing and hiding scavenger hunts, and loved on the kids. It was a wonderful, fun, and tiring week- but it worked out so well- and the children are precious.
David and Goliath Musical on the last day of camp for the parents. ( josef is little david) As you can also see the hand painted backdrop which says "who is your hero?"
Sling shots in the air!! Adam and Mate ( like the tea) - singing the last David and Goliath song. SUPER PASSIONTE kids.
fishing day at the lake. Strip down to the undies and grab your hand made fishing rod with a safety pin as a hook!
Ivete and I- Precious precious little woman of love and compassion. We cannot understand a word we are saying to each other but it just works. Even though camp is over, she still catches me as i walk past her house to the bus stop and I get a BIG ivete hug :) ( which means so much to me)
I have learned several things this week:
1. Actions are better than words.
2. Never underestimate the power of a hungarian girl's hug.
3. Liver paste is NOT my thing.
4. Keep going, even when your have 4 blisters on your foot and your hamstrings are about to detatch.
5. Lake baths are NOT an acceptable form of shower- the after smell is just not okay.
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