I’ve been avoiding writing this for some time now because well…how does one simply sum up a year of their lives in a blog post? I guess you really don’t.
I won’t ever actually be able to clearly sum up or explain or paint a picture all that God did within me and our squad the past 11 months. What I’ll always be able to do though is remember.
Remember when Walker and Caleb ate dog month 1 in Cambodia. R.I.P. Airbud
Remember playing with elephants in Thailand with Erinn.
Remember that one time we celebrated Christmas in Malaysia with sock stockings.
Remember learning traditional dances in the Philippines.
Remember when team agape got a puppy from our host in Zimbabwe.
Remember mine and jacs 9th grade students we fought so hard for in Zambia.
Remember the miracle God did in the little girl we prayed for and baptized in Malawi. Also remembering how we randomly worked in a medical clinic all month long dressing wounds and counting pills for the pharmacy.
Remember building a zip line tower with power tools in Ukraine.
Remember how God moved in the parents of my squad mates at the parent vision trip in Romania.
Remember the time team agape took on babysitting our hosts children for ministry in Albania.
Remember that one time our route got changed from Greece to Spain for month 11 and for the first 10 days we lived in a Spanish villa and talked in British accents pretending to be rich millionaires while playing tennis. Hiking 10 days on a spiritual journey called the Camino and meeting amazing people along the way. And last but not least, remembering how we made it to our final debrief, celebrated one another with chair declarations, cried and laughed together, and said goodbye.
Today marks exactly 2 weeks of being off the race. 14 days of non world race culture. What people around us would consider “normal.”
Hot showers with great water pressure, friends, family, food that is more then $1.
Things are different. And that’s okay.
Transition for me has been easier then I expected. The first week was great and God showed up in such cool ways confirming a lot about my future. But I had doubts. I thought maybe because the first few days were easy, I was almost doing this whole transition thing wrong. Is that a thing? Because we had talked about coming home and what it would look like so much as a squad I think in my head I started to create its own formula of what my coming home transition process would look like.
1. Get overwhelmed at all things
2. Remain in survival mode spending $2 on every meal
The list could go on about all the things I thought coming home was/is supposed to look like.
It took me maybe 48 hours to realize that that is actually ridiculous. I didn’t need to force my transition to be hard. I could celebrate the small things about coming home that have been easy for me. It’s a constant reminder daily that each of us will experience things differently. We will grieve the race in different ways, remember different memories, take what we all learned and apply it all differently and that’s okay.
Even though my transition has been simple so far, two things have been rather difficult.
1. Flushing toilet paper. After having to throw away tp for 345 days, I easily forget I can actually flush it now yay!
2. Instant. People and things in North America run on instant. Grace and patience on this side of the world are rather a lack of towards one another and is something that needs to be replenished.
It’s been hard for me to not understand why people get so upset so quickly over such little things. This is an area of transition that will grow myself in grace and patience with others.
I know there is a long road ahead of continuing to close this chapter of my life and move onto the next. The Lord has been so faithful to me these past 2 weeks helping along this process and it’s going to be great to one day look back on this season and know I let go of the race the way God wanted me to.
I want to say thank you to every person that has spent time in prayer for myself and our squad this past year. Thank you to all of my financial supporters. And thank you to each of you who have read my blogs and stayed up to date with my race. All of you came on the field with me and helped impact the world to some capacity, for that I am forever grateful.
God did so much in my life this past year and I’ve learned a lot, and I know the change I’ve experienced and all that I went through was real and for the kingdom.
So here’s a cheers to a closing of one season and opening the next.
Goodbye World Race.
