I’ve been home for three weeks exactly. That’s it. Twenty one days, and it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve hung out with my team. I miss them so much! We talk nearly every day, but being away from them has been hard to get used to. Final debrief doesn’t feel like it was only three weeks ago.
My first week home I fought off a debilitating cold that stole my voice and wrecked my sinuses, and I spent almost every day sleeping and blowing my nose… That week I didn’t do much, but did end up driving my friend Bekah back to her college the Sunday after thanksgiving and camping out on her dorm room couch for a few nights. It was nice to have no where to be and pretty much hide from the world. Bekah goes to school in New Hampshire so I enjoyed the drive and the hiding away, but eventually I knew I had to join the real world and the big-kid club, so I returned home.
Only two days after coming home from New Hampshire, and after a few job interviews that just didn’t feel right, I found myself walking into an old diner in Ballston Spa and asking if I could chat with the boss. Walter, an old polish guy with a heavy accent and a temper like none-other walked into the front of the diner. I said hello, introduced myself, and without asking any questions, he simply said “Come in tomorrow at eight am.”
Suddenly, I had a job.
It threw me into a bit of a funk. I went home that night a little depressed. The realization that I no longer could live off of five dollars of fundraised money a day, and that my job was no longer ministry in foreign countries hit me like a truck. I had to put dirty sneakers on and wait tables. That isn’t my passion! This isn’t my calling! I didn’t go to two years of beauty school to wait tables again like I did when I was seventeen! Yet, God told me that I needed to put those old shoes on and show up the next day at eight.
I argued with God all evening. I told him I wasn’t ever going to work in the food industry again. I’d hated it in high school and it felt like seven steps backwards. I’d moved to Colorado to go on staff at a church as a youth leader! I’d done the World Race! What the heck was I doing in a little diner serving coffee and home-fries?!
So I showed up. I wasn’t interviewed, I didn’t even get a chance to ask Walter any questions. I worked all day, I made a decent amount of tips, and when closing time came, I realized something. Waitressing, though it lacks glory and cool selfie-opportunities with elephants, wasn’t rocket science. It was easy, it was a job that I could do until Freddy and I get married and move, and it’s a way to love people.
Even if serving waffles isn’t my passion, you know what is? People. People have always been who Jesus pursued. He never had a glorious job, a famous facebook page, and I don’t know if he ever hung out with Elephants… but he did hang out with people. In fact, Jesus served a heck of a lot of fish to people numerous times.
So, even though I’m lamenting the loss of my squad and the freedom to roam the world, I’m looking at my new little job as a learning experience, a humbling experience, and more and more chances to love people the way Jesus does.
What’s even cooler is it’s really not that hard to do. The race has taught me a lot about taking criticism with grace and how to learn in environments that aren’t exactly kind. Walter yells a lot, and he’s never once let anyone say a complete sentence to him without him interrupting… but Walter knows Jesus, and he’s cool with me sharing if people ask me. And the even cooler thing is people already have. Rich is a regular and comes in every day, hes a retired Navy guy and every day I’ve worked he’s come in with a new question for me about a country I’ve been in. John is a retured fireman and he loves to talk about Jesus with me. Frank is an old fart who looked me dead in the eyes and told me I just wasted the last year of my life and that I should just find a husband and have his babies. He told me that I couldn’t fix anyone and that spirituality was stupid. I refilled his coffee and he hugged me goodbye.
The thing about this diner is it’s not a place anyone only visits once. Every day we’ve got about 20 regular visitors, all retired, old, and they all want to talk. I think they’re lonely. I get to be that person that fills their coffee mugs and hands them their eggs over easy. I also get to the one of the only people that smiles and tells them to “stay warm” and to have a safe drive home.
I love my new ministry. My “month twelve” of the race. It’s going to be a long month twelve, I plan on working there until Freddy and I move in the summer, and even though it aint Thailand or West Africa, it’s people, and they need Jesus everywhere.
Also if any of you are wondering, Freddy and I are thrilled to be back together and just enjoyed an amazing weekend in Philly at the Army Navy football game! ARMY WON!! He get’s to come home pretty much every weekend until we get married and we are so excited to get to spend so much time together! I’ve found me a good one, folks.
The football game was COLD COLD COLD but worth it in the end. Go Army!
