On the World Race, we learned real fast that you need to be flexible, be ready for anything, drop all expectations, and keep a positive attitude. I’m writing this on day 4 in Bolivia. There have been some situations that have not been ideal even in just these last couple days, but let me tell you, there’s no place I’d rather be and I can’t contain how excited I am that this is what God has called me to do.
We flew into Bolivia from Miami overnight and I didn’t sleep a wink. Getting off the plane I was exhausted. Even though I was exhausted, I was smiling ear to ear. We were finally in Bolivia! I had been waiting for this since November and the view of La Paz was breathtaking, pulling an uncomfortable all-nighter wasn’t going to stop my excitement.
My team got to the hostel where we would be staying until leaving for our bus to Uyuni at 7pm. After a couple hours of the leaders getting stuff together, they came back and told us that we couldn’t leave until tomorrow night for Uyuni because there were riots going on in a town on the way so buses weren’t going that night. Initially, this was very disappointing. I was ready to get to our ministry sight, I was feeling impatient and just wanted to be in Uyuni. Although this was an unforeseen bump in the road, I ended up being super thankful for it. We were able to have a long good night of sleep in a bed rather than going from sleeping on a plane to sleeping on a bus. We had a whole day to rest and explore the awesome city of La Paz. We got to take a tram that takes you over the top of the city, something we wouldn’t have done without this unexpected change of plans.
Then there was our 11 hour bus ride into Uyuni. It was bumpy and so cold that there was frost on the inside of our windows. I slept a couple of hours but was too uncomfortable to sleep the whole time. I was sitting next to my teammate, Shannon, and we took this opportunity to be positive and enjoy our time on this bus. It started off with us just laughing at how awful the bus ride was and then we decided to play the Thankful Game. This is something we learned about in our training for the World Race: when things aren’t going so great, list all the things your thankful for. I’ll admit, the game started off something like this, “I’m thankful this bus isn’t on fire.” It did eventually lead to us listing legitimate things we were thankful for, and through this conversation, we both came to the conclusion that we were so excited to be exactly where God wants us to be and that this is the life He has called us to. Being in God’s will is so worth having a numb butt for a few hours from a bumpy bus ride.
When we got off the bus at 6am, it was 12 degrees outside. We knew it would be cold, but none of us were prepared for it to be THAT cold. We stood in the freezing cold for quite a while waiting for our ride, which ended up being all 13 of us and our packs in the bed of a truck. We got to where we were staying which isn’t too bad of a living situation, there’s just no heat. We all put on all the layers we could to try to get some kind of relief. But you know what? You’ve probably guessed it: the cold isn’t bothering me! We went to church that morning and met some of the Bolivians who attend the church. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world than in Uyuni, Bolivia, cold and all!
Every couple of hours since I’ve been here, I just stop, look around, and am filled with joy thinking, “I can’t believe this is my life!” It’s only been a couple of days on the Race, which means I still have so many awesome experiences to come! I can’t even handle how happy I am to be doing this crazy thing! It comes with crappy, but I’m still happy!
