God has blessed me and brought me so many miracles on this trip- whether it’s by experiences, or things I got to do or witness, or people I talked to- there are so many miracles that have happened around me. This list is only a few, but it’s a reminder to walk in the idea that everything is a gift from God even if it doesn’t seem like it at the time. Sure- the fitness hike back in Gainesville didn’t seem like a blessing, but it was. It taught me how to quit relying on my own strength and ask others for help. Sleeping in a tent has taught me that home isn’t just where you sleep at night but is also the people you’re with. 

Here’s a list of one hundred miracles from the Lord that I’d never have gotten to experience otherwise. Take a minute to think- what in your life is a miracle, even if you don’t see it as one, or didn’t in the moment?

100 Miracles I’ve Gotten To Do Or See

1. Eat a 50-year-old egg. (Gainesville, GA)

2. Jump off a waterfall! (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic)

3. Climb up a waterfall like they do in the movies. (Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica)

4. Chase a rooster out of the room at seven am. (Dominican Republic)

5. Get a tattoo in another country… from a Russian tattoo artist! (Dominican Republic)

6. Learn how to take down a house with a hammer and a crowbar! (Lake Charles, LA)

7. Use an electric saw to cut metal. (Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica) 

8. Herd cows up a mountain. (Hope Mountain, Dominican Republic)

9. Subsequently run from a herd of angry cows (Hope Mountain, Dominican Republic)

10. Enjoy ministering to kids! (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic)

11. Sleep in a tent in the woods for three months (Gainesville, GA)

12. Sleep in the baptistery of a church I don’t go to (Lake Charles, LA)

13. Pick fruits straight from the trees and eat them, like Eve in the garden of Eden. (Costa Rica)

14. Get hit in the head with a coconut falling from a tree (Costa Rica)

15. Work for Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child (Lake Charles, LA)

16. Dance on a rooftop of an apartment building! (Santiago, Dominican Republic)

17. Stab a snake in the head with a machete (Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica)

18. Build my first house made entirely of wood and nails at 19 years old (Punta Cana, Costa Rica)

19. Swim in the ocean (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic)

20. Share a tent with a snail (Gainesville, GA)

21. Eat horse sausage (Suiri, Costa Rica)

22. Cross the border into Panama illegally for like two dollars (Panama)

23. Build my second house at 19, this time entirely out of concrete (Hope Mountain, Dominican Republic)

24. Pick plantains off a tree (Dominican Republic)

25. Ride a horse in a different country (Hope Mountain, Dominican Republic)

26. (Not) Get COVID-19 after a 14-hour drive on the way home from Louisiana (LA, GA)

27. Drink water from a waterfall. (Costa Rica)

28. Eat plantains every single way there is to eat them (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic)

29. Watch a movie entirely in Spanish and be able to understand most of it (Hope Mountain, Dominican Republic)

30. Eat Real, Legitimate Southern Food™ for the first time ever (Lake Charles, LA)

31. Go swimming in a moon pool (Dominican Republic)

32. Put on a talent show for the locals (Dominican Republic)

33. Learn to skip rocks (Panama)

34. Ride a 10-person canoe down a river (Costa Rica)

35. Learn to sing in Spanish (Suiri, Costa Rica)

36. Eat grilled crickets. (Gainesville, GA)

37. Do a photo shoot of my friends in a house I don’t live in with Christmas lights I don’t own (Gainesville, GA)

38. Watch all seven Harry Potter movies with my team (Dominican Republic)

39. Swim with a school of fish (Dominican Republic)

40. Finally see how pineapples grow in the wild (Dominican Republic)(??)

41. Go stargazing when the power was out (Dominican Republic)

42. Live in a room with 19 other girls (Dominican Republic)

43. Milk a cow (DR)

44. Drink milk straight from the cow (DR)

45. Have someone look me in the eyes and say “I want you to start a fire” in the jungle and be allowed to do so (Costa Rica)

46. Get pooped on by a bird (DR)

47. Finally learn how to throw a football properly (DR)

48. Shower in a waterfall (DR) 

49. Finally beat Aaron at a game of Thirteen (DR) (May 2 2021)

50. Say goodbye to one of my teammates forever (Costa Rica)

51. Go shopping in a mall in another country (Dominican Republic)

52. Walk in the gifting of prophecy (All countries so far)

53. Clean out a swimming pool with laundry detergent and a broom (DR)

54. Swim in the Caribbean ocean (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic)

55. Get hit in the face with a crowbar (Lake Charles, LA)

56. Bring the gospel to people who had never heard of it before (All)

57. Learn about the intricacies of Passover (Dominican Republic)

58. Write biblical fiction for fun (CR)

59. Learn to rap in Spanish (Costa Rica)

60. Get baptized in the Caribbean Ocean by my entire team (Costa Rica)

61. Eat a very fancy steak dinner for only five dollars (Dominican Republic)

62. Stay up in the middle of the night for three hours praying and doing nothing else (Dominican Republic)

63. Wear the same four outfits over the course of nine months (all)

64. Learn how to carry a conversation in Spanish without knowing how grammar or conjugation works (Dominican Republic)

65. Look forward to Mondays (Dominican Republic)

66. Learn to harmonize to almost any song (Costa Rica)

67. Learn how to play more card games than I can count (all)

68. Learn Spanish worship songs without knowing what they say (CR)

69. Be part of a sex trafficking awareness campaign (DR)

70. Raise $16,000 without putting any of my own money into it (Gainesville, GA)

71. Get a dreadlock (Gainesville, GA)

72. Plan a church service and give the sermon (Gainesville, GA; Costa Rica)

73. Learn how to not view myself as a burden on other people 

74. Travel out of the country before anyone else in my family! 

75. Learn how to kill spiders without fear (GA)

76. Learn to cook Latin American food really really well (Costa Rica)

77. Drink juice from a bag! (Costa Rica)

78. Eat ice cream also from a bag! (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic)

79. Get fleas (Costa Rica)

80. Fight with my entire team but ultimately have it end up being fruitful! (Costa Rica)

81. Eat leaves off a tree while hanging out the window of a moving bus (Giraffe Time) (Costa Rica)

82. Do street performance in a language nobody around you understands (Costa Rica)

83. Hold a dead crab ?? (Costa Rica)

84. Swim in the river bordering Panama and Costa Rica (Panama)

85. Be witness to a bar fight with an old man who was a US war veteran and one of your friends who openly voiced his political opinion without being asked to do so (Costa Rica)

86. Name a baby cow (His name is Earl) (Dominican Republic)

87. Be part of a carefully coordinated flash mob for someone’s birthday (Dominican Republic)

88. Be part of the chocolate making process starting straight from the cacao beans (Dominican Republic)

89. Have a butterfly land on me (Dominican Republic)

90. Learn how to write flyers for a talent show in Spanish (Dominican Republic)

91. Successfully order food at a Pizza Hut when seven of us do not speak Spanish at all (Dominican Republic)

92. Mix concrete by hand (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic)

93. Ride on top of a school bus (Costa Rica)

94. Learn to enjoy taking freezing cold showers at 6am (Dominican Republic)

95. Complete the hardest challenge of my life with friends helping me the entire way (fitness hike)(Gainesville, GA)

96. Rejoice at the fact that I was in a McDonald’s for the first time in 6 months (Dominican Republic)

97. Drink 1.25 liters of Coca Cola in under an hour (Dominican Republic)

98. Memorize Bible verses in Spanish on my own time (Dominican Republic)

99. Read the entire book of Philippians- really read it, not just skim it (I have notes)(Dominican Republic)

100. Receive radically supernatural healing for my broken knee (Gainesville, GA)