Being back at Zion’s Gate has been really great. I am back in my tent and have really fallen in love with the ministry that ZG does. The two weeks have been a lot of property work with making ZG look more welcoming and beautiful. We have fixed up the paths, we dug up the water line underneath the land for them to bury better, my teammate has made the stone walls look beautiful with painted drawings, we have begun to paint the inside and outside of the house where the boys live, and have done other various maintenance work.
We have also had the opportunity to spend some time in La Kennedy, which is again a very poor part of a neighborhood that ZG has dedicated a lot of time and effort by pouring into their community. My team and another team spent the day there Wednesday by putting on a spa day for the girls. We also brought the community homemade lunch. We dyed and cut hair, painted nails, and washed hair and feet. It was so amazing to see the community come together and enjoy the day with us. The guys had fun getting their hair dyed all different colors with different designs, while the girls loved getting their hair colored and styled just the way they wanted it, all while getting their nails done. I could tell that they really appreciated the time we spent there. It was a truly humbling experience getting down on my knees and painting the nails of these women- something that I will never forget. We also spent the day yesterday playing soccer with the boys and although I played terrible, I think the boys had a ton of fun with us. It’s cool to see the men on my team pour into these boys- they are really making a difference in these boys’ lives and it’s amazing to see.
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As my last week in Honduras is about to end, I can’t help but try and think to I’ve learned on the WR the past two months. But what I learned was something I didn’t expect. In fact, what I learned was to have no expectations. I began the World Race thinking that I would come in fully ready to leave everything behind and to immerse myself in 11 different countries. I had experienced this full immersion when I studied abroad in Ghana, which was a big reason why I did WR. I missed the feeling of depending on different cultures and people. I missed the feeling of brokenness and being uncomfortable. The feeling of being uncomfortable stems from a lot of different things. It can be from a lack of food or water, it can come from being in difficult or unsafe situations, and it can come from being thrown into something you are not used to. Coming into the WR, I didn’t feel these things right at first. Yes, there were times I felt hungry or thirsty, but it was never extreme, and it could be fixed instantly. I longed to be immersed in a different culture that I hadn’t experienced before.
So expecting full brokenness and full abandonment was essentially unrealistic. The past two months, my squad has lived pretty much all together in an enclosed and safe environment, we have been fed pretty well, and we have limited amounts of time off site and in the city. We do get ideas of this brokenness and abandonment with our ministries, but in my mind, it wasn’t enough. A couple hours a day was somehow not good enough for me. I wanted the full immersion and all I experienced were small snippets. But to be unsatisfied was something I wasn’t ready to give in to. I needed to change my mind set in order to enjoy myself fully. So instead of abandoning the comforts of home, I needed to abandon all expectation and just be. I have a tattoo on my foot which I got with my wonderful cousin Shannon a few years ago after studying abroad in Ghana that states: “Breathe & Be.” And half the reason why I got it was because of the fact that I didn’t always abide by those words. I have a knack for always thinking to the future and for never fully living in the present. And on this trip, it’s hard too. We are only at our ministry site for a little more than three weeks, and it’s easy to think to the next country, the next continent, the next experience. See to truly ‘breathe and be’ is quite an art. It forces you to take in everything around you, to breathe it all in, and just be content. It doesn’t matter where you are; chaos could be happening around you at a busy and overcrowded market, or you could be taking in the most peaceful sunset you’ve ever experienced. It always applies.
When you are constantly waiting for something to happen and to keep expecting certain revelations or experiences, you miss what’s actually happening around you. And what is happening around you doesn’t have to be uncomfortable or extreme. Because those things will come. What is happening is a great respect for my team, the ability to be flexible and patient, branching out and trying new things, living out of a tent for 2 months, letting go of fear and judgment, challenging myself spiritually and emotionally, truly experiencing God, and finding what I am passionate about in this crazy world.
So what I’ve learned is not so much about different cultures around me, although I have gotten a good grasp. What I have learned is to abandon expectation, realize when you are experiencing something truly amazing, and to just breathe & be.
