Before launching on the World Race, we were told at least a dozen times to drop our expectations and just be open to what God had in store for our upcoming year. And as much as I tried to follow this rule, I still came onto the Race full of expectations of what the year would hold.
I expected to see the world. I expected to have my view of different cultures broadened and meet people who walk through life in entirely different ways than I’d ever known.
I expected to grow in my faith. To experience God on a deeper and more intimate level. I expected to heal the sick, cast out demons and see peoples lives transformed…and if I was lucky, maybe my life would be transformed as well.
And while I’m happy to say that every one of those expectations was met, this year was also full of experiences that were very much unexpected.
And that’s what I wanted to share with you: my list of some of the unexpected moments that made this year one that I will never forget.
I didn’t expect to stay on the same team for the entire race.
I also never expected to fall so madly in love with the five women on my team that they truly feel like family.
I didn’t expect for my favorite month to also be the month that I slept in a tent in the jungle surrounded by flesh eating fire ants and the biggest spiders known to mankind.
I didn’t expect to go the entire race without washing my towel once. Seriously. Not once.
I never expected that showering more than once a week would seem excessive. Come on, I can go twelve days, easy!
I didn’t expect to make such close connections to people all over the world that at times it physically hurt to say goodbye.
I never expected to get so comfortable with peeing outside that even though we are now in Europe, I still often choose it over searching for a restroom. This month in Ireland we went to our first movie theater in six months and I chose to pee in an empty cup in the middle of the theater rather than miss the climax of the movie. You can take the girl out of Africa…
I didn’t expect to go months without eating a vegetable.
I didn’t expect to be able to celebrate the holidays, but Thanksgiving in Thailand and Christmas in Malaysia with my team will be memories that I'll always cherish.
I didn’t expect to end the year viewing a ten hour bus ride as a “short trip”.
I didn’t expect to genuinely rejoice for teammates when they have a healthy bowel movement.
I never expected to love living in community so much. There is nothing in the world like it and I know it will be one of the things I’ll miss most about the race.
I didn’t expect to realize that I had kept God in so many tiny boxes in my mind. I also didn’t expect for Him to burst out of them and fill my entire being with the reality of who He is and the love that He has for the lost and hurting all around me.
I didn’t expect to be freed from chains that I didn’t even know I was carrying.
And I didn’t expect to be shown time and time again what it looks like to live life abundantly. What it means to live every moment in pursuit of Him and why it’s worth even my last breath.
I’ve seen it in the children of Thailand and Cambodia who have been disregarded and mistreated but who still love freely. I’ve seen it through the extravagant hospitality of strangers in the Dominican Republic, through the way Africans dance and praise with reckless abandon, and in the shining faces of children in Ireland who just prayed for healing and then watched God show up and do just that.
With only eight days left on the race, I'm realizing more and more that I’ve been wrecked for the ordinary. And I shouldn’t have expected anything less.
