I’ve been home from the World Race for almost two weeks now, eaten Chick-fil-a, watched some Netflix, taken a ridiculous amount of hot showers, and have started reconnecting with family and friends who have supported me throughout the past year. In meeting and talking with them, there have been recurring questions that have come up in conversation. So, for those of you who I still haven’t been able to meet with yet, here’s some answers to questions you may be wondering:
1. So…what did you do?
I hung out with nuns.
Ministry on the Race involved practically anything and everything. Each month, we would get a ‘job’ for the month, such as doing manual labor at an orphanage. To bless our ministry contacts, we would try to do whatever they or the community needed most, at any time of the day. Throughout the Race, we did everything from machete ten acres of undeveloped land, teaching English, farming, preaching, door-to-door evangelism, visiting the sick and elderly, to simply holding babies and loving the people around us.
In Romania, ministry was chopping firewood for elderly women
But ministry always went farther than the task that we were assigned to do for a few hours a day. Ministry isn't just a job but a lifestyle. It’s not really even about what you do, but more how you love. It’s about loving the nuns, prostitutes, child soldiers, gypsys, AIDS babies, Communists, the street kids that try to rob you for drugs, the drunk men that always seem to find you, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and the people group that’s hardest to love: my teammates.
Teams Hebron & Spirit ROAR 1 & 2, I absolutely love you guys!
2. What was the weirdest thing you ate?
We ate dog in Cambodia, squid eggs in Thailand, and once had dinner with some of our neighbors in Malaysia where we had no idea what we ate, but it definitely wasn’t chicken.
We did however, eat a lot of bugs. Sometimes, as a part of a dish, like eating duck rolled in ants (for extra crunch), but usually ants or some other bugs would invade our food, and we’d just keep on eating.
Nothing like a little extra protein.
For most of the Race though, we basically just ate rice and beans for every meal.
3. What was your favorite country?
Qatar. I was there for a total of 6 hours on a layover, but it was freakin’ magical. Somehow we got upgraded to stay at a 5 star hotel with a dinner buffet and the world’s greatest showers (literally, I’ve checked).
But as for countries that we actually lived in and did ministry, there’s three months that really stick out to me:
- Guatemala: We lived with a Mayan people group, the Tz'utujil, in San Pedro de la Laguna, and did different forms of outreach, including hanging out in coffee shops with tourists in the area, praying with the bread ladies who sold the most delicious cinnamon rolls ever, eating ice cream with street kids, and climbing volcanoes to evangelize to other villages.
Margarita & Margarita: two street kids that sold bracelets to tourists
- Thailand: Every other night, my team of three would visit the red light district of Phuket, Thailand and would visit with the prostitutes working in the bars. After making friends with them, we would have lunch with them and simply love on them and show them that they’re worth more than what the rest of the world saw them as.
Hanging out with some incredible women
- Uganda: One of the most physically demanding months, yet I’m so glad our team got the experience of living in Northern Uganda in an ex-refugee camp. We lived in a completely war-torn area that had been infiltrated by the LRA for years and worked with a ministry that reached out to the many youth that lived in the area (The average age of Ugandans is only fifteen). We literally spent our whole day simply loving and holding small children and having kids church everywhere we went.
Every day I got to hang out with 200+ of my new best friends
4. Did you ever want to quit?
There were times when I wanted nothing more than to get away from my teammates. And times when I hated having to do ministry. And times when I was starving, and dirty, and tired of even loving Jesus.
Loving is hard.
When we were in Uganda, there were many days when I was just done with it all. I had every right to be miserable and have self-pity until one day I listened to a sermon by Todd White. In it, he said,
“Ministry becomes hard when it becomes about you.”
Yup. Burn. Real-life conviction. While the Race was one of the most powerful years of my life, I definitely wouldn’t use the word ‘fun’ to describe my overall year. It was hard. But, I also wouldn’t trade any moment for anything easier (even that one particularly rough week in Moldova) because that’s not what life’s about. It’s about overcoming the tough things and choosing instead to focus on greater things. Not on you but on God.
Quiet time: When life gets too real.
When life got tough, it was all about having hope. In holding on to the promises of the Lord, that in the end, everything's going to be okay because Jesus wins.
5. What’s next?
I spend this next month resting and simply being renewed and eating more Chick-fil-a. In July, I join my sister in working at a local summer camp called Deer Run Camps for 6 weeks. After that, I will simply do what I’ve been doing: Listening to the Lord and doing what He says.
With that, I want to say thanks to everyone who supported me on this journey, it was an incredible experience to be able to see the Holy Spirit move in such powerful and ridiculously awesome ways and I wish I could take more time on this blog to write about the amazing things He’s shown me this year. Feel free to contact me ([email protected]) if you have any other questions or want to know more about my life—I’d love to sit and talk!
Love you guys and here’s a video that one of my teammates, Mary, created about our past year:
