The World Race is one crazy adventure where you are constantly in situations where you have to solely rely on God. I’m countries where you don’t speak the language, have no concept of the area around you, and don’t have any internet to look up the information it’s not really possible to lean on your own understanding, abilities, or what some Americans would call “common sense”.
There have been so many times on the race where we encounter “sketchy” situations… and I guess my grandma has trained me well because every time one of those happen I immediately think of her.
So thought it might be funny for you all to hear some of the sketchy real life situations I have encountered on the race. (Plus I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give my grandma some time to process these things before I get home face to face with her).
11 times my grandma would have killed me if she knew what the race really looked like.
1. After giving our passports over for 2 hours to receive a “verbal extension” of our visas, we were put up in hostels. So we got into a bunch of unmarked taxis going to a hostel we never caught the name of at 3am. Once on the road in our taxi we realized no one in the car had a team phone, knew the name of the hostel, and we couldn’t speak the language. It was our fist, well we should have planned that one better moments.
2. Road on top of a bus to the top of the mountain in Nepal to get to our ministry site. There were steep drop offs on each side, where we had to avoid power lines, tree branches, and completely flying off because it was so bumpy (we may have had a few “close calls”).
3. Road on the back of motos in Vietnam with students who we knew didn’t have their license to another city.
4. Most times the process between arriving in a new country and getting connected with our host is pretty sketchy. We don’t know the town, the language, or what the host looks like… most of the times we haven’t got our local sim yet either so phones are out of the question. In Cambodia we arrive in the middle of the night and the only way we knew where to get off was because we meet a gay Cambodia man on the bus who spoke a little bit of English who told us that this was our stop, this very sketchy stop. It was very questionable, but he was right.
5. We may have gotten ourselves surrounded by 3 slightly upset rhinos while trying to get a good picture of them.
6. While I was exploring the beach by myself I saw a guy with a knife cutting up something, so I went over to see what he was doing and ended up eating fresh oysters out of the ocean with him.
7. On our first adventure day in Swaziland we went to this waterfall where we heard you could swim at. When we arrived there were signs everywhere that said “do not cross” or “no swimming” and higher up the river signs warning us of crocodiles. But we had already heard from one of our local friends that we could, so we looked if the water actually looked sketchy and decided to go swimming anyways.
8. I went to go read a book in the park by myself and accidentally fell asleep. I might mention that I forgot to tell anyone where I was going so…
9. One of our interns Sam and I were out exploring the Andes Mountains, but it took longer than we thought to hike down the mountain, and we didn’t want our hosts to freak out about where we were (we didn’t have a phone) so we decided to hitchhike home instead with a brother and sister who only spoke Spanish.
10. ALL OF OUR AMAZON HIKE- specifically walking across landslides with no actual path only “steps” in the dark to the light of the moon, with a 60ft drop into a river with rapids.
11. We decided to go biking in Banos to see all the waterfalls, but the biking is in the middle of the road with major semi trucks and buses. We are going incredibly fast down hills, in small tunnels with these cars, and I haven’t really rode my bike since I was 14.
But don’t worry grandma… despite the fact that I did all of these ridiculous things while on the race, I am still alive coming home to you in a few days.
Plus I learned so much about how the Holy Spirit acts as our ultimate guide through his peace. There have also been many times on this trip where we will just be walking along a road and feel a lack of peace, so we change our route. Or people who look totally fine on the outside, but your spirit lets you know that you need to leave. I know describing these things out of context will make you never want me to travel anywhere again, but I want you to know that I have now learned so much about how to listen to the perfect protector… My Heavenly Father. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. I have watched my fear of the unknowns decrease as I have learned to place my trust fully in the lord. I have learned what it looks like to ask God about everything, from the sketchy food that our first time host bought us off the side of the road to which car to ask for a ride from.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
This is what the World Race has taught me.
