Hello!! I’m coming to you today from Santiago, Chile! We’ve been here for five days and South America has been nothing but spectacular. I live in a church building with my team and Team Vessel. The girls share a super super tiny room, the sunshine is glorious, and I get to put a teaspoon of dulce de leche in my oatmeal every morning. Our ministry this month is assisting in public schools with physical education and English classes for primary students, as well as tutoring in the afternoon and sports ministry on weekends. We’re incredibly busy this month, and on top of that, our teams are learning Spanish! It’s been awesome to finally be able to communicate somewhat with the locals. And I love being able to finally practice the language of my dad’s side of the family! I have to admit, though, that while this trip is incredible and beautiful and amazing….it’s also really hard. I’ve felt so many emotions so vividly and I’m learning how to feel certain emotions I’ve pushed down for so long. So today, I’m going to share little snippets of my journal from the past few weeks to kind of showcase what I’m going through and what a rollercoaster this race is. Enjoy!
November 3 – Ukraine (Homesickness)
Sometimes when I’m laying on my yoga mat, I close my eyes and pretend I’m back home in the piano room first thing in the morning after my yoga practice, watching through the window as people pass by. And for a split second, it almost feels real. Like I’m laying on a dog hair covered floor with Dad sitting on the chair in the living room and Mom in the kitchen next door. Like I’m not thousands of miles away, teaching English to kids in Eastern Europe with five other random people. Like I’m rubbing shoulders with the familiar.
November 5-6 – Ukraine (Sadness)
Good morning! I don’t know if the exclamation point is necessary, because today is our last day in Zdolbuniv. Our last day with our host family. We leave sometime tomorrow. I don’t want to leave.
We said goodbye to Zdolbuniv today. The two memories I see the clearest are so bittersweet they make me want to cry again. The first is when my sweet friend, Serhii, hugged me right before I got on the train and he said to me, “Don’t cry, little Emma”. The second is when the most amazing host mom in the whole world, Vita, came up to me with tears in her eyes, kissed my cheek, and told me, “You are my children”. I’ve cried so many tears. Who knew a single month could grab ahold of you so easily?
November 7 – Ukraine (Wonder)
I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Lviv. This city makes me want to write poetry and plays and make music and draw pictures and paint and cook or bake. Art seems to come alive here. I feel the most myself I’ve felt this whole race. Lviv is stunning. I adore cities and how they’re all the same. All busy people treading the damp streets, thousands of lives loud and colliding. I love that despite the sameness of cities, each one is uniquely itself. New York City is cold and glamorous. Lviv is art and history coming to life. Brasov is mysterious and cozy. Lisbon is vibrant, yet polite. Denver is grey and musical and soft-spoken. I love cities. They inspire me.
November 11 – Chile (Curiosity)
Jesus wept. Was Jesus a quiet crier? Did he shake when he sobbed? Did he get a stuffy nose and a headache afterwards, like I do? I cry all the time. But am I afraid of grief? Do I allow myself to feel emotions?
November 14 – Chile (Anger)
Maybe I’m allowed to feel angry and boiling with rage. Maybe I’m allowed to not like things that people did to me or said to me in the past. Maybe I’m allowed to be pissed off about how I don’t know how to even start processing everything. There is obviously self-governance and forgiveness that comes with all this, but I’m finally allowing myself to start feeling angry. Sara Mac (SQL) said, “If you numb the “bad” feelings, you also numb all the other feelings”. God can handle it, so feel fully!!
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t really talked about many truly positive emotions here. That’s because the Race isn’t always about having the time of your life and basking in the beauty of God’s creation. Sometimes it’s about feeling so broken and unworthy and messed up that all you want to do is cry, eat Chilean sweets, delete old pictures, and listen to loud, angry music. Processing is so hard, but I’m learning that maybe this is what the gap year is about: becoming aware, allowing myself to be authentic and emotional, and letting the old things go so God can show me something greater.
-Emm
