You know, I wasn’t going to post this blog for a couple of different reasons, but then a couple friends asked me about it and told me they wanted to read them, so here we go!
For those of you who have absolutely no idea what I am currently talking about, let me help you out. I am not always the most normal person, often I have embarrassing things happen to me, or I do embarrassing things and my friends will make some sort of comment along the lines of “this would only happen to you, Shannon.” It’s a big joke but when I came on the World Race I started to realize how often things really do happen. During month one I kept a list and then posted a blog about it. It was just a fun way to keep friends updated on some of the funny little moments on the Race that people otherwise may not hear about on my blog and I have continued writing them for each month. So here are some of my crazy moments from month 4, in Colombia.
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We took a train from Ecuador to Colombia and at one point in the middle of the night I had to use the bathroom. The driver hadn’t turned on the bathroom light and I decided to just go in the dark. It was quite a challenge. Later on the bus I went back in the bathroom, during the day time and was really excited to use the bathroom and be able to see. Right as I got in there we went through a tunnel.. and it was pitch black the. entire. time. Of course, the second I opened the door to leave we left the tunnel.
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We lived on a mountain this month, overlooking the beautiful city of Bogota. In order to get to our house we had to pile into Land Cruisers, the mountains version of taxi’s, and climb our way up the mountain The first time I ever rode up the mountain I had my daypack on my back. My backpack got stuck as I climbed into the Cruiser and I started to fall out of the car. My dear friend saved my life and literally caught me as I fell. She is a gem.
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So we got to our house and we were living with our lovely ministry contacts. Every meal we sat at a long table all together and at the beginning of the first meal as someone was about to pray I jokingly linked arms with Courtney and Justin. Next thing I knew everyone was linking arms. One of our contacts looked at us and said something along the lines of “oh no, this isn’t the custom here, we hold hands.” So everyone laughed, and we all held hands. It was super awkward. Oh, Shannon.
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I had had a rough day and it just happened to be laundry day. As I was pulling out laundry from the washing machine I suddenly burst into tears with my face IN the washing machine. Multiple came out into the hall to see what was happening and they all saw me crying with my face in the washing machine. No one knew what to do, I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t funny then, but it sure is funny now!
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I guess I technically kidnapped a child while in Colombia…
So here’s the story. We went to ministry at a park, to sing songs and play games with some children. It turned out the park was actually a small grassy area on the side of a hill, covered in cow poop. All but two of the children had these cute little uniforms on, but they were all sitting together with the group. As we sang it started to rain so we grabbed all the children and took them to the church we lived at. The teacher was waving us all on and we each grabbed a child’s hand leading them up the hill, I grabbed the hand of this adorable little boy who happened to be one of the two with no uniform. The teacher looked right at me, smiled and waved me on. At the church that precious little boy fell asleep in my lap. I asked the teacher what his name was and soon found out that she had no idea, that he wasn’t part of the school and that he just happened to be at the park when we got there. He made it back to the park safe and sound, but yes, I kidnapped him for a few hours. Oops.
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I decided I needed to shave, but the shower was too chilly. Instead I grabbed my dear friend, Rocky, and we went into the backyard. I grabbed a bucket and we sat in the sunshine and talked while I shaved my legs. It started raining while we were out there, but that didn’t really matter. Our ministry contacts daughter looked down from the upstairs window with a look of confusion on her face. She just said “Um. What are you doing?” I giggled and replied “I am just shaving my legs in a bucket, Laura, it’s normal!” She continued to give me a funny look and just quietly slid the window closed. Hah, so funny!
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I ate a hamburger at debrief and in mid sentence I realized there was a dead lady bug stuck to the outside of my hamburger. I commented on it, picked it off, flicked it out the window and continued eating my burger. Apparently this isn’t normal…
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We had team changes during our last day in Colombia and we had an afternoon to go make a memory with our new team. We went to an art museum and that was hilarious in itself. But this lady working there got onto me because I was standing too close to the paintings. Apparently you have to be a meter from the art at all times, who knew! She wasn’t very happy with me, it probably had something to do with the fact that she had to tell me three times before I heard her and realized she was talking to me. Whoops.
FUNDS UPDATE:
I am 92% funded! I need to raise the remaining $1,267 by January 1st, 2015. If you would like to support me financially, simply click on the “support me” link on the left side of my blog. Any amount helps incredibly! Thank you so much for playing such an important part in my journey. You are furthering the Kingdom and that means the world to me!
