I’ve been home for nearly two months, and as a final World Race blog, I decided to compile some of my frequently asked questions and answer them here. My hope for this is to give you some kind of understanding of what it’s like to come home from the field, let you know what’s next for me, and maybe leave you with something to take away from my experience.
What was your favorite country?
Nearly impossible to answer, but I’ll give it a shot. I would have to say that, all things considered, my favorite overall country was Nepal. The hospitality in Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan rivaled that of Mississippi, I thrived the most in our ministries in Turkey and Greece, and the mountainous landscape of rural Tibetan China were some of the most shockingly beautiful places I’ve ever seen. Seriously. I’d take another 14-hour bus ride through western China today.
But the country that showed up and showed out in every category was Nepal. I was able to experience the city life of Kathmandu, teach Pauline theology at a Bible college in Jiri, get violently ill and be treated in a UNICEF tent, bungee jump into a ravine on the Tibetan border, and trek out to sleep under the stars and witness truly remarkable life change in the remote villages of the Himalayan foothills. I stay in regular contact with our ministry host, and we continue to pray for each other’s families and churches.
What country had the best food/what’s the weirdest thing you ate?
Not surprisingly, Greece had the best food. Gyros, greek salads, souvlaki… Although my (three-day) layover in Rome did offer a cannoli and carbonara that (almost) brought me to tears. Honorable mention to China for their green pepper pork, beef noodles, and roadside boiled peanuts. Also worth mentioning: Nepal, whose beaten rice, daal, potatoes, and the occasional egg for all three meals every day did have my body feeling the healthiest it ever has in my entire life.
I didn’t really come across any weird foods though. The strangest thing I ate was yak in China and horse in Kazakhstan.
Note: some racers found maggots and monkey brains.
It’s a delicacy.
How are you adjusting to life in the States?
It hasn’t been too bad, but I have had a few specific freakout moments, most notably the literal five minutes I stood frozen in front of the giant wall of deodorant in Kroger. For the past year, if a country even sold deodorant, it was an awful spray, and you still better stock up on it because who knows when you’ll find it again. Here I was with a million options, and I was paralyzed by it.
Overall, being home has been restful, and I’m thankful for the chance to take a breather. But for most of December, I felt an extreme uneasiness in that rest. I was anxious to be getting back to the camp in Greece. I always felt like I needed to be ready for a shift. I was scared to commit time to anything because I had grown accustomed to my free time being limited so heavily by life centered around working in Moria.
Going from a rapid-fire schedule straight into a period of calm felt wrong.
I had grown addicted to my stressors, and I had grown addicted to being needed.
Things are better now, I think. I’ve come to terms with the fact that we serve a God of righteous rest, and I’m starting to wrap my mind around rest as a gift and a holy thing.
On the flip side, rest is not to be indefinite.
Grace offers rest, but it also calls to action. If we allow ourselves to be dominated by either, we’ve lost sight of what Grace is.
What’s next?
If any of my fellow racers are reading this blog, you shuddered at the question.
It’s hard to give a definite answer, so to give myself some clarity, I prayerfully made a list of things I know:
- I’m committed to Jackson for at least the next few months.
- I plan to go back to work at the refugee camp in Greece this year, especially in light of recent political executive activity.
- I know that I have to keep writing.
- I know that my future is missions-oriented.
- While fundraising was extremely valuable to my spiritual development, I believe that if foreign missions is going to be an ongoing lifestyle, it is my responsibility to follow the example of the Apostle and support myself through work.
Whatever path the Lord puts before me, I will take it.
With this list in mind, I’ve taken the following action.
- I’ve determined how much money I need to save to spend three more months working in Moria.
- I’ve formed my personal training business as a private LLC.
- I’ve created www.blackowlfitness.com, where I’ve archived all of my World Race blogs, will continue to write, feature photography from my teammates, and created an online portal for my personal training services.
- In addition to in-person training, I’ve selected software and developed a platform that allows me to train my clients online via iPhone and Android apps.
Between now and my return to Greece, I’ll be building my online clientele and planning for my future in self-sustained missions. If I’m successful, I’ll be able to freely return to the field anywhere in the world while continuing to manage a fulfilling job that I love doing.
The real answer to what’s next for World Racers?
We don’t stop. We rest for a moment, and then we pick up where we left off and we keep going. I’ve said this to my team, and I’ll say it again. This was not the best year of our lives. This is not where it ends. This is not what defines us. It would be easy to fall victim to the delusion that our lives have been spent preparing us for the World Race, building up to this climactic year of adventure and opportunity. But this is not where we peak. This is just part of the story. Once the #11n11 novelty wears off for the people around us and we’re not a big deal anymore and people stop caring that “real Chinese food is sooo much better than No.1 China Buffet,” the truth of how minuscule this year actually was will become glaringly obvious.
We were made for more, and we will do more.
The Lord will continue His good work in us to completion.
We’re not done. Don’t expect us to be.
