Its been 11 months, I’ve been to 11 countries and I know you are all dying to know how they compare. I decided not to take these rankings lightly and developed a comprehensive rating system involving five different categories.
The 5 categories are:
A. Location:
aesthetic beauty, weather, proximity to memorable things. (Note: I didn’t value proximity to western comforts like toilets, showers, etc.)
B. Contact People: How much did I like the people who took care of us. Did they teach me things? Did I feel like they cared about us?
C. Ministry: What did they have us doing? Was it fun? Was it meaningful?
D. Personal Growth Experienced: How much did I change as a result of this country. Sometimes adversity brought about the biggest epiphanies.
E. Desire to return one day: What are the odds I will try to go back one day?
Just a note, the scoring is like golf, so lower number means its ranked higher. So Mexico 3, America 1, Canada 2 means that America is my favorite). Thus 11 is the worst, 1 is the best. I removed some self-censoring so please enjoy my frank edginess.
New Zeland, Wellington
a. Location: 7 (green
everywhere, near river, but nowhere to go w/o driver)
b. Contacts: 2 (Brenden &
Chris extremely influential when I was particularly uncertain of myself)
c. Ministry: 8 (stuff I could have been doing
at home: volunteer cleaning service + outreach events)
d. Growth: 4 (learned I
couldn’t always be the missionary hero and that this trip includes lots of seed
planting)
e. Return: 5 (Nice place and nice people. Doesn’t really need my services, but
would be nice to visit again)
Australia, Darwin
a. Location: 9 (Darwin is 100
degrees all the time, desert farm.)
b. Contacts: 6 (Lots of great
people played small roles, but no singular life-altering contact.)
c. Ministry: 6 (Running a farm
plus some services and prayer meetings.)
d. Growth: 8 (Learned some
humility, disciplined bible studies.)
e. Return: 4 (There are 10 or 12 people
that I would like to visit again.)
Philippines
a. Location: 3 (orphanages,
basketball courts, slums all around.)
b. Contacts: 5 (If the Longs
didn’t have to divide their time btwn 11 teams, they probably would be even
higher on the list.)
c. Ministry: 1 (Friend/role model to teenage orphan
boys, basketball coach, what could be better?)
d. Growth: 5 (Figuring out my role when I’m not
officially a leader.)
e. Return: 1 (Realistically, this is a place I could see myself visiting again.)
Cambodia, Phnom Penh
a. Location: 10 (downtown, great for the girls who liked the malls and coffee shop. Not great for me.)
b. Contacts: 10 (Although everyone was incredibly friendly, it felt like we were a financial aid mission at times.)
c. Ministry: 10 (teaching
English, preaching, visiting slums… the people were great but perhaps because it was our first non-English speaking country, relationships tended to be less deep and we often didn’t really know what was going on.)
d. Growth: 1 (porn blog,
realization about focusing on God rather than worrying about man’s opinion, tons of team drama since it was first month w/ new team.)
e. Return: 10
Thailand, Kamchanaburi
a. Location: 1 (jungle in the
middle of nowhere.)
b. Contacts: 4 (Bang was so
awesome that she single handedly raises it up a few spots.)
c. Ministry: 9 (manual labor,
taking care of cows/goats, nightly baths in lake.)
d. Growth: 2 (I realized some
aspects of being a man, like being initiator. Reached out to YWAMer.)
e. Return: 6 (Beautiful and
it would be fun to bring future wife here.)
Kenya, Nairobi
a. Location: 6 (living w/ pastor, in the heart of
slums, mild electrocution w/ showers.)
b. Contacts: 3 (Best pastor,
really took us into his family, it helped living in his home)
c. Ministry: 4 (A little bit
of everything, teaching, preaching, door to door, slums, hospital.)
d. Growth: 7 (Had Hunter on
team, WR exposure training camp.)
e. Return: 3 (Great people,
Great community.)
Tanzania, Mwanza
a. Location: 11 (imagine AZ,
but thinking people are going to try to rip you off.)
b. Contacts: 9 (divided
amongst 3 pastors, not super close w/ any as a result.)
c. Ministry: 3 (Preaching,
door to door, evangelism, hanging with kids. I’m the only one on my team who really enjoyed the ministry.)
d. Growth: 3 (Team growing,
figured out characteristics I want in a future wife.)
e. Return: 8
Uganda, Bulucheke
a. Location: 2 (Gorgeous
jungle in hills)
b. Contacts: 8 (Mixed
bag. Lots of time w/ contacts but didn’t get very deep. That said, they are great people and we certainly had some great laughs.)
c. Ministry: 5 (Preaching,
door to door, teaching, community visits)
d. Growth: 9 (Lots of alone
time to myself, lots of bible reading, journaling and learned to play some guitar.)
e. Return: 7
Romania, Bucharest
a. Location: 8 (nice acomodations, but didn’t find a lot to do nearby)
b. Contacts: 7 (a bit
frentic, though I have no doubt her heart is in the right place. Some of the girls from orphanage I’d like to see again one day.)
c. Ministry: 7 (disorganized
at times, but had some good opportunities to help Gypsies.)
d. Growth: 10 (3 teams together, so spent most of
my time pouring into other squadmates.)
e. Return: 9 (It will be fun
to see some of the orphanage girls in a few years.)
Slovakia, Nove Zamky
a. Location: 4 (small town of
50k, entire town in walking distance, 40 cent gelato.)
b. Contacts: 1 (Milan, Vikki,
Vlado…really welcomed us and preferred us.)
c. Ministry: 2 (High school
students, teaching and preaching.)
d. Growth: 6 (Discovered my
future career/ministry ambitions.)
e. Return: 2 (Definitely
would love to see everyone again in a few years.)
Ukraine, Yalta
a. Location: 5 (Gorgeous
cliff sea view, but no free time to go anywhere.)
b. Contacts: 11 (Love the translators, Pastor and Wife are very nice, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even know all 7 of our names by the end of the month. It feels more like a master/servant relationship than a friendship, though my whole opinion could be a bit skewed due to some specific factors. Maybe they will eat a meal with us or something before the month is over and I’ll have to come back on here and modify my statement.)
c. Ministry: 11 (We chop wood
and shovel dirt and rocks from 9-5. Not even
a very clear vision of why we’re slaving away (leveling the hill into a bball court). Also, after a day of manual labor we teach English from scratch to neighborhood people. Be allowed to Preach last Sunday might be the main real positive ministry experience i will remember from here women aren’t allowed to preach and aren’t supposed to do hard labor b/c it might inhibit child-rearing. My heart goes out for the community–very conservative and tradition oriented.)
d. Growth: 11 (Maybe I am
learning patience or something, but I mostly just feel grumpy, used, and unappreciated for 75% of the day. A constant battle to remain positive or at least try not to spread my negativity. Team time in the evenings is great, but its one of those “look at your watch every 30 minutes and hope its almost meal-time” sort of ministries.)
e. Return: 11 (Heh, already counting down the days to final debrief.)
So without further ado, I give you the final rankings for my trip around the world…
1. Philippines (15)
2. Slovakia (15)
3. Thailand (22)
4. Kenya (23)
5. New Zeland (26)
6. Uganda (31)
7. Australia (33)
8. Tanzania (34)
9. Romania (41)
10. Cambodia (41)
11. Ukraine (49)
There you have it! Philippines & Slovakia are my favorite memories, all things considered. Be aware that my experience might not be identical to everyone else’s and different cities, different ministries, and different team circumstances could drastically affect the rankings.
Check out this video of highlights from the past year!
