Excellence: the quality of being outstanding or extremely good.
During a bus ride in South America I spent some time journaling on all the random thoughts going through my head. The main topic I wrote about was living in excellence. I talked about how I want to live my life well, even when I don’t feel like doing anything. I want to give my all in everything I do, on the Race or back home after the Race. A lot of times I have the mentality of “okay, let me just get through these next three hours and then I can do what I want to do; then I can really live my life,” instead of giving my all and getting as much as I can out of the mundane tasks or the things that I think get in the way of living my life.
I don’t want to live that way anymore and I was reminded of that almost everyday in Ashiya, Japan. Why? Because I saw excellence lived out, right in front of me.
We spent the first day of ministry settling into our home and figuring out the food situation. I was living with three of my teammates in a start up business called LIFEKids and we would be cooking for ourselves. We had a small kitchen, with an even smaller refrigerator, which meant we would be making trips to the grocery store across the street every few days for food.
We decided to go find an ATM to pull money out for the month before getting dinner. In Ashiya the only place we could use our cards to pull out money was 7/11. We asked our ministry host where one was and off we went. After a while of searching, we couldn’t find it, so we decided to go into the grocery store to ask for directions. The employee at the register didn’t speak English and as we turned to leave this man ran up and asked us if he could help and proceeded to follow us outside to give us directions. His hair was slightly disheveled and with every word that came out of his mouth spit went flying. He had the biggest grin on his face and you could tell he really wanted to help us find the 7/11. He kept apologizing for his poor English (which is something most Japanese people do, even when they have incredible English – like this man).
We eventually found the 7/11 and, long story short, had a hilarious mess up while pulling out money. We got confused about the exchange rate and instead of pulling out $50USD we accidentally pulled out $500 each. Oops. Instead of having bad attitudes about it we joked around, mentioning how we would have a five-course meal for dinner, since we could each pay for it and so on.
We ended up going to the grocery store, Gourmet City, for dinner and the same man came running out, concerned we hadn’t found the 7/11. It was precious. During our month in Japan there were only three days that I didn’t go into Gourmet City for something. We came to love seeing our sweet friend and would talk to him every chance we got. We learned his name was Tiko and that he lived in the States for a year when he was younger. I told him about the Race and what we did on our off-days each week and he was really interested in what we were doing. He was the most helpful person, he helped us find the correct light bulb, told us that yes, the carton that looked like milk was indeed milk and helped us find non-Curry flavored sauce for our pasta.
During a late night crisis of debating whether I should get ice cream AND donuts, or just ice cream for our girls movie night he walked by and told me to get the donuts, but save them for breakfast. By that point in the month he knew that I was going through a donut phase and ate them ALL THE TIME. Seriously, it was terrible and wonderful all at the same time.
Tiko never hesitated to help us out and went above and beyond his job responsibilities to do so. When he stocked shelves he did it so quickly and so efficiently that he was out of breath and covered in sweat. I never heard him complain and everyday I saw him living out excellence. Grocery store shelving is mundane, yet Tiko did it with such joy. I saw Jesus through him – in his willingness to help out the poor American girls who couldn’t read a single label in the entire store. I saw Jesus in his hard-working personality. I saw Jesus in his smile and when he showed interest in our lives. Every time I left Gourmet City I left encouraged. I left desiring to be more like Tiko, living an excellent life, no matter how mundane the task before me is. I left wanting to be more like Tiko, not grumpily getting through my shift so I can go home and start living my life, but embracing the opportunity to encourage the people around me and the opportunity to be outstanding at what has been put before me.
How will you live in excellence today?
