If I wanted to, and if I had enough money, I could travel the world, just
like I am doing now. I could see the sights, I could go on the adventures, I
could meet the people. I could even do the missions work with the same people we
are working with now. I could do all this on my own. What makes the World Race
different, what sets us apart? There must be something that makes this experience
unique from any other. The answer is simple:
Community.
There is something unique about traveling the world with 6 one time strangers
who I now call my family. The six people on my team come from all different
corners of the states: Vermont, Wisconsin, California, Georgia, and Colorado,
and aside from the fact that we all signed up for this crazy adventure, we had
no previous connection to each other. What makes this work? Here are a few
aspects of this community that set us apart:
Feedback: This is a concept I had never heard of before the World Race.
Every night we sit down as a team and debrief about the day, talk about
challenges we faced, and speak life into one another. What does “speaking life”
even look like? In a business setting, this might be when you have a staff
meeting and criticize, point out flaws, complain, and attempt to fix internal
problems. For us, this is a time of calling each other UP into greatness,
rather than calling each other out. We encourage each other, we offer
suggestions for improvement, we speak truth to each other. Everything is spoken
out of love and with the understanding that we all want to improve ourselves
and grow. The key to making this work is for everyone to participate and be
invested in each other, and not take things personally when someone speaks to
them. (Feedback is an interesting concept; I challenge any of you to try it out
at work or at home and let me know how it goes. It could completely change how
you view one another!)
Forced Proximity: We did not choose who we are traveling and living with.
We all signed up for this independently of each other and our teams were chosen
by our leaders at training camp prior to embarking on this trip. If it were up
to me, I may have chosen to travel with people I know or my friends from back
home in Georgia. But that would have been too easy. A large part of this experience
is the fact that you are living with the same six people day in and day out,
24/7. Farting is normal and expected. Girls don’t feel the need to wear makeup.
We aren’t trying to impress anybody with what we wear, and thus we wear the
same smelly clothes all the time. We know each other backwards and forwards. It’s
crazy to think that six months ago Nick, Jamie, Nicole, Ashley, and Emily were
all strangers to me. We were brought together because we chose this and wanted
to be a part of something greater than ourselves.
Our Community is what sets us apart.
Family Force Six is spending this month living in Oradea, Romania, and the
term “community” is now taken to a whole new level. We are spending this month
with two other teams and there are 20 of us living in a “hotel” at a Romanian
orphanage. Don’t get me wrong, the hotel is really nice and has plenty of
space, but living with 20 people will always be a challenge wherever you are
(trust me, I lived in a frat house in college with 35 guys). We are learning
how to live off of $2 /day per person and making this work to feed 20 people 3
meals a day. I know, this would be impossible in America, but we are making it work here. We are longing for
our alone time and personal space. We are trying to manage with 4 showers, one
washer and dryer, and internet that doesn’t know what to do with itself when 15
people get on Skype at once.
Our three teams sitting down for lunch at the hotel in Oradea.
However, challenges aside, this month is an incredible opportunity for us
to grow together and for me to get to know some of my squad mates on the other
two teams that I haven’t had a chance to yet. There are extra people to do
Insanity workout videos with. With the rotation, I only have to work in the
kitchen one day a week. There are plenty of people to do construction (and not
enough construction for us to do). There is always someone to play cards with or
to just sit down and talk to. We’ve got graduates from Georgia (me), USC, LSU,
Arkansas, and Ohio State, giving us no shortage of people to stream college
football games on Saturday nights (and no shortage of trash talk). I thought I
would hate having so many people around, but honestly, I love it.
We have a few extra hands to move dirt with. Here’s the all star crew of Jamie, myself, Lindsey, and Nick
When I look back on this experience I will see 11 different countries where
I experienced 11 different ministries. But the thing that will last and make this
experience worthwhile is the time and that I spend investing in my team and
others on my squad. These lasting relationships are what I will take away from this experience and carry with me in the long run. We were a bunch of individuals when we signed
up for this. We have made ourselves vulnerable to each other and opened up ourselves
and let the walls we had be torn down.
I
could be doing this alone, but it wouldn’t be quite the same. This isn’t just a trip around the world. This is something more.
