Anika Erickson, of the World Race M Squad, is one of over 200 Racers coming home next week after 11 months on the field. She wrote this letter on behalf of those Racers to the friends and family that will welcome them home soon.
Dear friends and family of MNOP Squads,
You are the people we told first when we signed up for the World Race. You were there when fundraising felt impossible, and you were the people who supported us most.
You waved us off at the airport with tears in your eyes, a little nervous and unsure of what we were getting ourselves into. You stalked us on Facebook, liked our pictures, read our blogs, prayed for us, worried about us when we were not worried for ourselves, and loved us from afar.
You are the people we wanted to talk to but could not because the WiFi cut out, or it was 3 AM your time, or because we did not have electricity. We wish we could have talked to you more. Choppy phone conversations on Magic Jack, email, Facebook, and even Skype never felt like enough.
For everything you’ve done for us this past year we say, “Thank you.”
Now it’s time for us to return to you. Most of us have no idea what to expect. We have no idea how to explain the last year of our lives. Every day has proved itself to be the strangest of days, but it’s become so normal we don’t really talk about it anymore.
We’re so excited to come home (there is a chance that we daydream and talk about it too much), but at the same time we don’t know how to say goodbye to this strange life of ours. This change will require a lot of grace.
For the last 11 months we have lived in unfamiliar surroundings. We have lived out of backpacks and have hand-washed our clothes. We may have developed the habit of smelling each article of clothing before we put it on (a slight musty smell in acceptable as long as your teammates can’t smell you).
We’ve ridden on buses, trains, planes, tuk-tuks, crammed taxis, and in the back of pickup trucks. We have met the most amazing people and fallen in love with places we could not find on a map until we had been there. We’ve hiked to the corners of the world to preach the gospel and share the love of Jesus.
We have seen great hurt and poverty, but we have seen God work though us and our prayers. We have lived with the same seven people day in and day out, sometimes with no more than a bathroom or shower break. They know most everything about us; stories from our past, what we talked about with our last phone conversation with our parents, and the details of bathroom situations.
It is hard to explain because it’s just normal now. And how do you explain normal?
Please forgive us when we don’t know what to say or quite what to talk about. The things we’ve seen and the places we’ve been have become a part of us and words are hard to find.
We’ve changed a lot over the last year.
We have grown closer to God and discovered things about him and ourselves that we didn’t know before. It is hard to know what kind of impact our travel has had on us. I’m pretty sure we won’t see a lot of the ways that we have changed until we get home.
Hopefully we’ve become the people we were meant to be all along.
In preparation for our return we just want to ask a few things from you.
1.Please have compassion and patience for us.
We have never returned from an 11-month mission trip before so we can’t imagine that we are going to be very good at it.
There is a good chance that returning to America will be the biggest culture shock yet and we will be a hot mess and have a break down in the cereal aisle or in the sock department of Target. We have traveled with the same 50 people around the world, we have become like a little mobile city of sorts. We are going to miss them a lot, talk about them, and try to see them when we get the chance – but know that just because we miss them does not mean that we are not happy to be with you.
2. Please understand that we need time. Time to decide what is next, time to process, time to mourn the ending of the Race, time to heal from hurts we may have encountered.
3. Please share your life with us. We want to know what has happened while we were gone. Don’t ever be under the impression that we think the last year of our life has been more important than yours. And just like we can’t sum up our year into one sentence (“Er, it was uh, good.”), neither should you. We care about your past 11 months too. So share with us!
It’s been quite the year. We’re grateful for all that’s happened. We’re thankful we had amazing people to do this alongside, and we’re thankful we have people to come home to.
We can’t wait to see you at the airport.
Love you all,
The kids coming home from the World Race soon.
P.S. To clue you in on how excited we might be when landing in America, check out this video of first generation W Squad landing in America after their Race.
The World Race W Squad Landing in America!! from Stephanie Bernotas on Vimeo.
