During the last 9 days of July I had the opportunity to attend a training for The World Race in the Appalachian mountains just north of Atlanta. I was joined by 150 other World Racers my age and a host of about 30 leaders who worked diligently to put together an eye-opening experience. While I can’t go into too much detail (because I don’t want to ruin any surprises for future World Racers) I can say that we experienced intense Worship, profound teaching, team-building, discomfort, stretching, more stretching, cultural education, and basically just a reality of what we will be experiencing for the next year. Imagine having only one weeks worth of clothing, seldom having running water for cleaning and showering and drinking, humidity (even at night while trying to sleep outside), NO Starbucks, no washing machine, no air-conditioning, no ice, not much alone time (since we will be living in such close community), language barriers, cultural barriers (for example in India we can only use our right hand for everything, except bathroom uses), no family or old friends. It is exactly this type of life that puts us into a reality that billions face everyday. This reality is starting to hit me harder as I was able to experience this partly during training. The interesting part to me is that I consider myself extremely blessed and lucky to be able to spend the next year doing this and am excited for the journey that has already started. Especially since I have an amazing team (pictured above)…Team Habibi, which means “My Beloved” in Arabic! The word “Habibi” was given to a teammate of mine in a dream, which she has had about 8 times during the past 6 months.
