I like reliability. I like to stand on solid ground. As you can imagine, this
has often made life difficult a time or two. When I was thirteen and my family
moved to California, I refused to
accept it as long as I could. I was miserable for the first year we lived
there. Not because California was
miserable, but because I hated being somewhere different. When I graduated from
high school, I did my best to keep things the same. I went to a local college
with the intention of keeping my same friends from high school. Of course I
failed miserably, and I hated it. So when I graduated college and decided to
come on the world race, I knew I was in for a heck of a lot of change.
And boy was I right! If there’s one thing that I’ve learned
on the race it’s that things always
change. The world is in constant motion, and so are we. People change,
circumstances change, opinions change, etc. The last ten months have been one
change after the other. Change in locations. Change in ministry contacts.
Change in climate. Change in food. Change in living quarters, etc. We arrive in
a given country, meet contacts, attempt to learn and adapt to the given
culture, and just as we are beginning to settle in, it’s time to get up and go
to the next place.
It’s rough. Everything around us is always changing. And we are changing too! We’re not the same
World Racers that you all said goodbye to eleven months ago. God has worked
this year. In big ways. He’s molding us progressively into the people that he
has intended us to be ever since he created us. And although we aren’t there
yet, we strive to reach that place. We desire to be used by God, desire to be
more Christ-like, desire to be His hands and feet. And luckily for us, God can
still use us where we are now. He did this year. In small ways, in big ways, in
some ways that we may never know, God let us be a part of his Big Plan. And we
are changed people because of it.
And as our time remaining quickly fades away (16 days!), I
can’t help but look to the future, and all that is in store. I am about to
undergo the final change in this chapter of my life, and the first change of
the next chapter in my life. I’m going back to America.
Everything’s going to be different. I’m trading in the bus for my car, skype
for my phone, and my tent for a house. I’m saying goodbye to cold showers, wood
mattresses, and bug spray every night. It’s back to paved roads, air
conditioning, my own room, and a closet full of clothes. I’ll replace my sleeping
bag with sheets, my flashlight with electricity, and my hand sanitizer for
soap. No more cows in the road, rats in the kitchen, or lizards on the wall.
And maybe even one day, I will stop thinking
in Spanish.
am. And although I have a very small picture of what it’s going to look like,
I’m excited for it. I know that God is bringing me home. He’s bringing me back
to California, for reasons only
He knows, to fulfill purposes for His glory. I can’t even begin to imagine all
of the changes that await me when I get home. I am not so naïve at this point,
to think that things will return to normal.
(What is normal anyways?). So I’m strapping in and I’m ready for whatever
awaits me. I refuse to cling to what I know, to what has been in the past, and
I’m ready for whatever the future may hold. Christ is my solid ground, and it
is on Him that I stand.
