Things I’ve Done That I Now Call Ministry
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Teaching children English without a translator
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Moving rocks from one side of the land to the
other, then proceeding to move them back after long consideration
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Signing autographs and taking photos with random
strangers (because obviously, since we are white, we know Justin Beaber and are
therefore famous)
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Attending birthday parties and funerals of
people you don’t even know and pretending that you don’t feel absolutely
awkward sitting there with all the grieving or celebrating family members
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Building the foundation of chicken coupe, a
swimming pool, and a fish pond all at the same time
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Digging 3ft holes with our hands, a hoe and a
stabbing tool, then watching a tractor come and demolish all four of them
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Walking down the street and inviting people to church
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Talking to a stranger in an airport
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Going to visit inmates in prison and telling
them about Jesus, then getting hit on by a middle aged African man
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Punching and being punched by ten year old
street boys
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Holding sick babies
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Going on house visits, where we sing, pray, and
eat all of their food
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Singing and dancing with hundreds of African
children
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Receiving free guitar lessons, then practicing
for hours
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Raking a forest, then recovering the forest
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Sleepovers with aboriginal teenagers
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Learning how to sow – this could come in handy
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Watching movies and wearing face masks
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Climbing trees and picking all of the Mangos
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Planting rice with ten Cambodian women, only to
have them go back over the area we planted because it wasn’t good enough (a
help or a hurt? Not sure…)
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Drinking warm coconut juice fresh from the tree
(it is harder than it looks, and not quite as tasty as one would think)
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Allowing young girls to do your hair, only to
get a rubber band stuck in a knot and having it ripped out (ouch! Praise God…)
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Living in community with six other girls and not
tearing each other apart
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Driving long distances from city to city and
praying that we actually make it there
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Taking seconds, thirds and fourths of food to be
polite
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Speaking everywhere we go because we are white,
not because we actually know anything at all
Places I’ve Slept On the World Race
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On the floor in an orphanage with seven other
girls
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In a tent on the roof of that orphanage just for
fun
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On the concrete outside the airport in front of
McDonalds when we arrived 10 hours early for our flight
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On top of a pile of backpacks on the top deck of
an Indian bus for 9 hours
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In the back of a pick up truck going over bumpy
roads with 12 people piled in
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In the third bunk of a train, sizing at a whopping
6×3 cuddling with 50+ pounds of luggage.
Fetal position for 17 hours accomplished.
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On the floor of an office the size of a bathroom
with three other girls in the middle of winter with no electricity
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In many hostels, hotels, and guest houses-some
nicer than others
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On the pulpit of a small church, then got up and
preached from our bedroom. We did clean
up for company and/or church
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In a guesthouse on top of a mountain in Nepal,
with a door that didn’t shut, holes in the roof and smoke filling the room from
a fire the owner refused to put out. And
it was below 30 degrees.
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On the floor of a worship house in India
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Of course, on many airplanes
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In a Subway (the sandwich shop, not the train)
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In the airport (many times). Sometimes on the floor, sometimes in a chair,
sometimes lying across a pile of backpacks.
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In a tent on a golf course
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In a tent during a monsoon. My tent was floating within 10 minutes
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On an aboriginal woman’s floor in Australia,
falling asleep to the sound of an old lady coughing up a lung, a woman cursing
and yelling at her daughter, and a guy snoring- all while being licked by
puppies and bit by ants and mosquitoes
·
In a parked bus
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On the floor of a school room
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On top of a picnic table by the lake
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In a friend of a friend’s one bedroom apartment
in Moldova
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During worship in church (don’t judge me. You
know you’ve done it too, and I bet your service was in English!) J
Eventually you get to
a point where you can sleep anywhere, even standing up in a worship service or
in the back of a van flying over potholes through the mountains.
Transportation I’ve Taken on the World Race
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10 flights, including layovers and not including
the three we will take to get home in two weeks
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18 busses (long distance transport)
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100s of local buses, vans, taxis, combis,
Tuktuks
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The back of a pickup truck
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On top of a bus that was full in Nepal (yes, on
TOP of the bus.)
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Standing in a van over packed with people for 2
hours next to the driver holding onto the windshield, while continuously
getting sprayed in the face by an air freshener every five minutes (I timed
it). // It was worth it to get to civilization.
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Overnight trains, subways, metros
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Bicycle- Riding down dirt roads in the rainy
season while trying to carry a 90lb teenage Cambodian on the back. She ended up carrying me. If that wasn’t a humbling experience, I don’t
know what is
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Walking-We walked a mile with all our packs to
cross the Cambodian boarder / Walked 45 minutes to town 3-4x/week in Swaziland
because we couldn’t figure out how to catch a combi (a van that rides back and
forth through the city picking up people on the side of the road) and taxis
were too expensive.
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In a trailer attached to a moped, that ran out
of gas after 5 minutes, leaving us with an hour to walk back home in the dark,
down a dirt road with only a phone to light our path
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On the back of a taxi moped
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On a ferry
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In a fishing boat with Mozambiquan fishermen
paddling us across the ocean to an island where we almost got taken for
trespassing. Just another day on the
World Race.
