I’ve been officially on the Race and here in Belmopan, Belize for a week now. I’ve gotten just a small taste of what the full year will look like, and just like real life, it’s full of so many ups and downs.
I feel a sense of home here. Maybe because Belize is so similar to Jamaica that everything feels a little familiar. Or maybe it’s because I’m right exactly where the Lord has asked me to be. Either way, I’m thankful for the peace that has flooded my soul every moment since stepping off the plane a week ago.
I vowed to be honest and live “uncensored” throughout this year, so here’s my first test of it in telling what the Race looks like. The World Race is not glamorous. I hope my stories and my journey never portray an unrealistic beauty. There is beauty here, but not without the hard things. (The importance of the Lord teaching me this in my first week is not lost on me.)
Sometimes the World Race looks like thirty six hours of traveling, layovers, and dirty airport floors when a direct flight would have been three hours at most. Sometimes it looks like stepping off a plane and feeling the Caribbean heat with tears in your eyes because you can’t believe God is this good. Sometimes it looks like living in constant community in confined spaces with eighteen other girls who two months ago were complete strangers. Sometimes it looks like digging holes in the pouring down rain with mud caked ankle-deep, then going to paint Noah’s ark on the walls of an elementary school in the very same day. Sometimes it looks like walking into your kitchen at night to find a tarantula in the middle of the floor. (Then promptly having a panic attack.) Sometimes it looks like impromptu dance parties to the A Star is Born soundtrack. Sometimes it looks like your morning devotions momentarily interrupted for some much needed laughter at the sight of a teammate trying (and failing) to climb a palm tree for a coconut. Sometimes it looks like new small friends who stop by on their way home from school just to play with “the gringas”.
But mostly it looks like peace. It looks like joy. It looks like waking up each morning and having to pinch myself because I can’t believe I’m really here, finally in my first country on the Race. It looks like my team Ahava, everyday choosing each other, choosing less of ourselves and more of Him, and choosing to live up to our name (love in Aramaic).
The Race looks like and is so many things. But it isn’t easy. It isn’t something I at all feel qualified to do. Still, in all of my inadequacy, in all of my messiness, in all of these ups and downs, trying to adjust, and constantly asking the Lord for reassurance in this last week, there hasn’t been a single moment He hasn’t provided. There has yet to be a moment I’ve forgotten why I’m here or why He’s asked me to be.
A few years ago, I read a book called Kisses From Katie by Katie Davis. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a true story written by and about a young woman who obeys the Lord’s calling, quits her life as a middle class college student in Tennessee, and moves to Uganda alone, eventually starting a nonprofit and adopting twelve orphaned Ugandan girls to raise as her own along the way. Because rereading this book a year ago was what solidified my decision to apply to the Race, it’s only fitting that I’ve been reading the sequel Daring to Hope since arriving here in Belize. These are Katie’s words that stuck out to me and that I’ve already saved for what will definitely be referenced often down the road:
“God sees you and me in our pain and our brokenness. He sees you walking a difficult path when the sun goes down and your life is a far cry from that which you expected or dreamed up. He sees you, dear friend, when the ending of a story is not the one that you yearned for and your prayers seem unanswered and it all just feels like a bit of a mess. He wants to name those places The Lord Will Provide. In the places where you thought life might be easier, when you thought things might be different, when you thought *you* might be better, be more, God provides His Son, who meets you and provides grace for your gaps and light in your darkness.”
I’m naming the Race The Lord Will Provide. Because He is, He has, and He will continue to. Thank you endlessly for all of your support that has literally paved the road to today, as I am writing this sitting in Belmopan, Belize so in love with my life. Many more updates to come!
