There are kids yelling behind me as they run around kicking soccer balls, throwing paper planes, and playing tag. The sun is beating down but I am sheltered on the porch railing where I sit. I’m hot, sweaty, and wearing the same clothes for the second or third day in a row. I lost track. We’ve had one session of classes for the day with another one still to come in the afternoon. We’re about to eat lunch, which will be rice for the umpteenth meal in a row, and then we’ll enjoy the few moments of free time before our afternoon classes show up. I haven’t had cold water in a month, I sleep in a tent at night, mosquitos swarm from my bags, my feet are always dirty, ants swarm any food that you don’t seal tightly, and I still can’t flush my toilet paper.
It’s in this moment that I find myself perfectly content.
In this moment I know, with absolute certainty, I belong here. At BCI International School. In Siem Reap. In Cambodia. In Asia. On the World Race.
I don’t think I ever doubted that I belonged on the World Race before as much as I wondered if maybe I would be better off at home.
And I’m sure there will be moments like that again as I continue on the Race. It’s an easy thing to wonder when you haven’t stopped sweating in a week, or you have to shower out of a bucket, or you really don’t enjoy your ministry, or you haven’t eaten anything except rice for days. It’s easy to think home might be the better option in those moments.
But I’ll deal with those moments when they get here. Right now, I’m content with where I am. Mentally and spiritually just as much as physically.
And where am I?
Right where I belong. Loving God’s people like He’s called me to. And through that He has made one thing abundantly clear to me as I sit on a porch in Cambodia:
I belong on the World Race.
