I thought that when being on The World Race in the 11 countries that the language barrier would be our greatest communication struggle. Wrong. There are so many Chinese people here that speak English. Their English is not always very clear and many times I have to say, “what?” or “say that again?” But, for the most part I was anticipating much more difficulty when talking to the Chinese. I am so, so thankful that the language barrier is not very hard to cross here in China.
In my opinion, the most difficult form of communication thus far has been when trying to collectively communicate well among my team. Individually each of us are not terrible at communication. We all have college degrees and have held down jobs. However, while being away from the land that we know and the resources we were brought up using, at times we act as though each of us speak a different language. At home when we get locked out of our house or when we need to make a quick change of plans we just pick up our iPhone and make a quick text or phone call to resolve the situation. Here that is definitely not the case.
The areas in which we seem to be repeatedly struggling at communicating well are in such simple areas as when to eat, drink, and use the restroom. On the more difficult side is our living situation because of multiple people living in one room and being required to use one key. My guess is that one reason why we struggle is because we are not all on the same eating, drinking, and toileting schedule and none of us are used to living in such close community and dependency. When one person says that I need to find a bathroom if the others in the group do not need to go as well then they do not feel the strong sense of urgency like that of she who is about to wet herself. In terms of water, there have been times when we just didn’t have any more because we didn’t buy enough, because I drank too much (lol), or because we bought it too early in the day. On one instance, all of the water was accidently taken into one room leaving others without water until the next day. In our typical daily life we don’t ever have to work together with a team to fulfill or relieve (lol) our basic human needs like water and going to the bathroom. So I gracefully understand that this is just our first month and we are still trying to figure out life as a world racer living in another country and in a community setting.
In my opinion, of course for us Americans, food is our biggest communication struggle. When and how much we eat widely ranges between the seven of us. Some of us are used to eating less more often. A few on the team don’t have large appetites in general, while others have extremely large appetites. Some on the team snack more frequently than others, while others are eating solely at mealtimes. For me I enjoy eating less more often and have an extremely large appetite. At home I tend to eat decently sized meals but snack throughout the day on foods like pistachios (my favorite), fruit, or meat. After the amount of food that was given to us at training camp and especially because of the fact I am basically allergic to life, specifically milk and shellfish, I came on The World Race expecting to be hungry. So I have not been surprised that while being here I have been required to adjust to eating much less and much less often. The learning to adjust from my first world self-centered lifestyle is the process. At times eating on the race makes me feel like a child again because I am at the mercy of someone else for when I can have something to eat. A few times I have jokingly but almost literally prayed that God would multiply our food like he did the two fishes and five loaves.
I have full confidence that God will always provide and that I will not die of starvation on the race though there will be times that I am overwhelmingly hungry and that might last for days. And when I say overwhelmingly hungry, I am referring to being hungry because I am used to eating much more. Also, I know that I won’t starve on the race because if all else fails I have spending money that I can tap into. While being here I have bought snacks and eat them very sparingly. When we find a coffee shop with Internet we are expected to purchase something in exchange for the Internet. Lattes help with hunger because they have milk, for me soy, in them. And I have already been craving milk alternatives frequently because almond milk was such a big food group for me. Even with the comfort of knowing that I have spending money, I am not working for a year so my ‘spending money’ is very limited. I don’t feel comfortable spending an access of what I don’t have much of. And if I use my spending money for food when I am hungry, how am I learning from that?
During these 11 months I want to learn to be hungry well and learn to hunger and thirst for Christ alone. I want to learn to crave my spiritual daily bread more than actual bread. I want to learn not to give in to my appetites, in more ways that food, but instead be able to wait patiently on the Lord. I want to learn how to not let a lack of food or a hunger distract me from being able to fully focus on the Lord, on ministry, and on fully investing in my team.
