The squad leaders, team leaders, and treasurers had to arrive in Chicago for launch a day earlier than the rest of the Racers. Because Josh is Team Aletheia's treasurer, and we traveled from St. Louis together, I got to arrive early too.
The morning of the 5th, before the rest of the Racers arrived that afternoon, the leaders and treasurers had a finance meeting, which reviewed the way finances are handled on a team level on the World Race. I sat in on the meeting, but got stressed out (I don't like handling financial stuff. It gives me a headache), so I found LaShondra, who had just arrived, and we went to hang out in the lobby.
Soon, the leaders and treasurers were done in the meeting, and Josh and Nathan, our team leader, came and met me in the lobby. They were given money and asked to provide food for the team for the rest of the week while in Chicago. A group of us decided to walk down to the Aldi grocery store, about a mile and a half down the road.
If you have never been to an Aldi, there is a flow of traffic in the store. You have to go in the store one way, and travel up and down the aisles the same way. If you get stuck behind slower people, you are stuck until the traffic flow moves on. So, imagine 2 people (3 in our case) from every team, and from every squad, packing the aisles of an Aldi grocery store. I felt bad for the shoppers who just happened to be there at the time, and got stuck in all the chaos.
We were charged with getting enough food to last our team of 7 for the next few days while we are in Chicago, to keep it under budget, as well as taking into account that we do not have a microwave, and most likely no fridge in our hotel room. Kind of a challenge, actually.
So, we purchased the food for our team, and needed to find a way to transport it back to the hotel. Another Aldi fact: there are no bags provided. You either have to bring your own cloth bags, buy some of their bags, or load the food in boxes as they are emptied on the shelves. All that we had available were 3 boxes, so we stuffed all the food into the 3 boxes, and set out.
As we crossed the parking lot, the boxes held up. Our arms were starting to feel it, but we were determined to make it back to the hotel with the food.
Then, it happened. Total Home Alone moment.
Nathan's box bottomed out, and food scattered all across the road. We scrambled to gather up the food before any cars came. Miraculously, none of the jars broke. We took a second to gather our food, thoughts, and figure out what to do. Nathan suggested that we put everything into his and Josh's boxes, and I said that I could carry the two bags of apples and the bag of oranges.
So, we set out again. We had to stop to rest a few times, but we made it about halfway back. Then, it happened again.
Nathan's box didn't totally bottom out, but the flaps on the bottom opened partially, and some of the food started to spill out. We knew that we couldn't get all the food back with one box, so Nathan decided to run back to the hotel from there, grab some empty bags, and run back, while Josh and I stayed on the sidewalk with the food. About 10 minutes later, he returned, we loaded up the bags, and started again. By this point, we were sweaty, tired, and ready to get the food back.
As we were walking, I was thinking about the situation. It would have been really easy to be negative about the situation. It was hot, our arms were hurting, and the box breaking not once, but twice, had been frustrating. But, it seemed like we were all choosing to be positive despite the situation.
Adventures in Missions could probably fill a dictionary with the lingo that is used in World Race/AIM culture. We have all of these terms and phrases that are used, and it is funny that there needs to be lingo, but it is almost necessary. World Race culture is a culture all its own, and as such needs special terms to describe it.
Anyway, to introduce you to an AIM/WR term, in that moment, we were choosing high preference. This means that in situations where the natural reaction would be to do what is best for yourself (in this situation, flag down a car and ask for a ride, give the weight and responsibility to someone else, etc), we made a conscious decision to prefer others over ourselves, and do what was best for the team, rather than for our own physical comforts. We also chose not to let little frustrations get to us.
It is such a powerful thing to know that you have control over how you are going to handle a situation. In one of our sessions yesterday, we were talking about not being offendable, and it was mentioned that our attitudes are the only thing in the world that cannot be taken away from us. Everything else could be taken away, but no one can take your ability to dictate how you react to things. So powerful.
It was also awesome to know that I, along with Josh and Nathan, were serving our team. Even though they weren't even in Chicago yet, and they didn't know that there was even a need for getting food, we were able to serve them in that way.
We eventually made it back to the hotel with the food, greeted our teammates and other squadmates as they arrived, and checked into our new rooms. It has been a great last few days, and who knew I would learn so much from broken cardboard boxes?
Launch Chronicles are not done yet…Part 4 coming soon…
