But recently I have felt a calling to not row my Senior year and focus on local outreach with my church (AUMC). Our college ministry is growing and I feel called to head up some sort of rural outreach ministry that college students at AUMC can regularly be involved in. There is a lot of work that needs to be done on houses where their owners can not afford to fix them on their own. By offering help to them and explaining that we are doing this work because we are extending the love of Christ showed to us would be an awesome way to spread the Gospel to others. I believe that by committing all the time I would normally put towards rowing practice to this new ministry, there would be a huge growth within the church.
So Friday morning, I back up the truck to the huge boat trailer and haul our huge chunks of carbon fiber to Oak Ridge, TN - excited about what I thought would be my last race to ever row in. We had the privilege of staying at the Brink's lakehouse (which saved the team a large sum of money by not booking hotel rooms) and bonded as a team as we jumped off the top of their 25 ft high dock into cold Tennessee River water.
On Saturday, we eat breakfast at 5:30am and head out to the race site. There are lots of crews at this regatta and boats going all over the place, tents lined up along the course with parents and rowers, announcers with British accents at the starting blocks, and coaches running around trying to make sure all their boats are on time for each event. My boat, the heavy four, launches around noon and after a boat prayer at the start, come in first place. We try not to get too confident, because that race just qualifies us for the A/B final qualifying race. We launch at 4:00pm for this race and come in first again, qualifying us for A finals (which is a huge deal - this puts us at the top 6 out of all the heavy fours at this regatta [about 30]). My dad and sister were there the whole day taking pictures and motivating us to row hard - I love my family! We go back to sleep that night exhausted after an amazing cookout and marshmallow roasting.
Sunday, 5:30am we eat another amazing breakfast and head out to the race site for the big day: finals... If we do not do well in this race all that work was for nothing. We launch at 11:00am and do all we can to stay calm and collected, praying for strength, endurance, and connection. We line up at the starting blocks, sitting ready... attention... ROW! And we're off, starting out a little slower than the other boats. We are in 4th and creep up to third 1000 meters into the race. We are a boat length behind 2nd place and start to pick up our pace for the sprint, and all of a sudden the horn blows as we cross the 2000 meter mark and we placed 2nd to Murray State. We row to the awards dock and they drape the shiny silver medal on our sweaty necks and we row home.
After this unexpected and amazing feat (not to be boastful), we plan to go to Dad Vail Regatta in Pennsylvania. All the while I am thinking: "why is this happening if I am not supposed to row and start this ministry?"
So as we spend the next few weeks training for this last race, I will be spending a lot of time in prayer to figure out what He wants me to do. Please pray for me to hear His calling to its fullness.
Grace and peace from He who loves us most,
W. Van
GOOD MEMORIES with AU Crew. Thanks for writing about it!! That heavy 4 smoked the water. Proud to know all of you guys. My professors got used to all of my papers being rowing-themed during that really awesome year I had with Crew. :) Also got used to me hobbling into class after heavy games... HAHA!
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