Wow! In a few short days, my squad will board a plane in Bangkok and make our way to Los Angeles, how crazy is it to think that the World Race is almost over. In memory of the race I figured I would revisit each country we lived in. Fair warning this blog is super long.
Guatemala:
In Guatemala I had the chance to live in a little town about an hour away from Antigua called San Raymundo. My team was the biggest I’ve been on with 7 people (and 4 boys), we had a house all to ourselves and cooked all our own meals. We weren’t very creative, there were really only two things we could make, pasta, or mashed potatoes with stir fry veggies.
The ministry we worked with was called Morning Glory Christian Academy, during the school day we would hang out at the school and teach Bible, art and English. Mostly we just hung out with the kids and played a ton of basketball and soccer. We also did a lot of painting, sanding, and staining. When we weren’t at school you could find us at one of our many favorite taco places, having movie nights with our ministry host, or getting coffee at the one local coffee shop.
Casas por Cristo (CPC), an organization that builds houses for families in need, has an office in San Ray and one week we had the opportunity to join a team from Alabama to build a house. It was super neat to help meet the physical needs of one of the families in the community. There was an American family that lived in San Ray full time and were staff for CPC, and they had 5 kiddos, two adopted. Their kids attended Morning Glory and wow did the Ethiopian, Chinese and American kids stand out.
When we got there the kids had just started going to school and did not really know any Spanish so it was hard on them to be at the school all day. Our team just became really close with this family. We were at school every day so the kids had someone else who spoke English there, we helped babysit and went over for dinner with their family just like in America.
South Africa:
Our squad spent about a month in South Africa, and it was “all-squad month” so all thirty-something of us were together. We lived in White River and stayed at Africa School of Missions, which is a Bible college, but since they were out of school for the semester we were able to stay there.
While we were there we worked with Iris Ministries and 10,000 homes. It was a lot of feeding clinics and putting on VBS type programs for the kids. One of the coolest things I think we did was work with Michaels Children’s Village (which is a project of Iris Ministries) a children’s home, but they do things a little differently than a traditional children’s home. They use a model of “family”, the house parents are all married couples who plan to care for the children long term. The ultimate goal is to place several children with a family, allow them to live in the village with other families who are doing the same thing until they are ready to be launched back into their community.
I spent a lot of that month grocery shopping and organizing meals for everyone. Thanksgiving was during the month that we were all together, and not to brag but Em Weeks and I managed to plan, shop for and make Thanksgiving dinner for 50 people (with some help preparing of course).
It was a pretty short stay compared to everywhere else that we went but it was a really cool opportunity to spend time with the whole squad and work with multiple ministries to really get a picture of all the different ways God is moving in South Africa.
Lesotho:
In Lesotho I was on a new team of 5 girls! Quite a change from Guatemala. We lived in Maseru, the capitol of Lesotho and lived at a childrens home called Seed of Love (in Sesotho Tholana Ea Lerato). There were around 30 kids that lived in the home all with one house mother.
During the day we would just hang out with the kids and play with them, it was their “summer” break while we were there so they were at home all day. In the mornings Kayla and I would get up early and go over to the kids house to help them get ready in the morning and do the breakfast dishes. If we were lucky Malehloa would let us help make the bread.
It was one of the most emotionally difficult things I have ever done, while we were there the home received a new child, Lebu, who was about three years old we think. When he first got there he was completely dirty, extremely malnourished, walked with a limp and cried whenever he was touched. It was one of the most heartbreaking things I have experienced. To see a child only three years old that had already experienced so much of the pain and brokenness in this world. It was really sweet though, to see how the other kids took him under their wing and showed him the ropes, and made him feel comfortable.
Lesotho was full of lazy days playing card games with the kids, hanging out with them and just being with them. Some of my favorite ministry days were here.
Cambodia:
In Cambodia I was on another team of 5 girls, we lived in Kampong Thom, Cambodia in the Stung Sei part of the province. While we were there we worked with an organization called Mission Development in Cambodia which was just recently started by our host Sok Eng a few months ago. The ministry is really just getting started so my team worked on teaching English in the community and helping staff the preschool that he had started.
Cambodia was cool for me because it was the first time I lived with my host, we all lived in one house together. My team of 5, our host, his wife and two young kids. Side note: their family is the most precious family I have ever met in my life. I have never met a person more genuine and kind than his wife Khema. She is just the most amazing person and it was hard to say goodbye.
The last three months have been full of Khmer food, Khmer dancing, barbecues, teaching, and a lot of laughing. Cambodia was not my favorite country, but a lot of my favorite world race memories happened there.
Again I cannot say thank you enough to all my supporters who made this past year possible! It has been an incredible year and I cannot wait to tell you all about it IN PERSON in just a week!
