In case you missed it, I’m home in America!!
The last few days have been an emotional rollercoaster. From hard goodbyes with my squadmates I’ve just spent the last year of my life with, to tear-filled, joyous reunions with my family and friends at home. I’m adjusting, still recovering from jet lag and two full days of travel, and constantly asking myself and being asked by others how I’m feeling. As with most things in life, it isn’t a simple answer.
Leaving our final debrief in Uganda last week, I felt like I was in a surprisingly great place. I was so excited to just be home that I really felt like I had processed all that needed to be processed, everything was fine and dandy and I was ready to leave the Race and begin my new season of life. Then, on Saturday morning, we had a three hour bus ride to the airport. Almost as soon as I sat down on the bus, the floodgates opened and I couldn’t stop crying. It all hit at once like a tidal wave: I’m leaving the Race. You see, my head was mentally prepared and ready to leave, but I didn’t realize my heart was very much still on the mission field unable to so seamlessly move on and go home.
I realized then that I still need to truly grieve the Race. It doesn’t mean I’m not excited to be home, to be back with my people, and for all that’s next. But it does mean that the best adventure of my life went a lot faster than I thought it would, and somehow I have to let it all go and embrace a whole lot of change. This post is a little all over the place, but so is my head these days.
Never in a million years could I ever have predicted my life would turn out this way. It’s been four years since I finished high school and began my adult life. I’ve thought a lot about where I was then in these last few months on the Race. Like anyone, I always had dreams to travel the world. And like a lot of people, I had dreams to do it sharing the gospel and serving. I had a Pinterest board full of images that I always thought would be just that: images and faraway thoughts of somedays, never realities. Well, here I am sitting in my backyard in Memphis, TN, feeling really out of of place in my own home, fresh off of eleven months of traveling around the world.
We all are well familiar with the pride and celebration that comes with being the first in your family to graduate from college or receive a higher education. Maybe you were that person or maybe someone in your family was. I often joked this year that it was a similar sense of pride for me to be the first in my family to travel to four different continents and eleven different countries. Everywhere we traveled this year, I found myself taking pictures and videos not necessarily for the Instagram likes or validation from social media, but rather because I want to share this experience with my family who never, ever saw this coming for me either.
I’ve been fortunate enough to share so much of my journey through social media and blogging. But my hope and prayer from the beginning is that my Race experience would never be a shiny, glitter-filled and glamorous one. Yes, I got to travel the world this year. I got to hold and play with the cutest Vietnamese toddlers, hike an active volcano, drink wine on a river tour through Budapest, preach and share my testimony in a church in Rwanda, and go on an African safari, among so many other things. But none of these things were exactly glamorous. None of this Race was. It was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life, but it was also the hardest. I went weeks and sometimes a full month at a time without being able to communicate with anyone at home. I showered with buckets and used the bathroom in holes in the ground. I lived in constant community 24/7; I literally haven’t been alone in almost a year. (*All the introverts collectively scream.*) I traveled on cramped and sweaty buses for up to 30 hours at a time with my 32 squadmates. I spent more than a few nights in tears, crying out to the Lord and asking questions of my faith I’ve never asked before. I was pushed to my limit and then some physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally, and doubted that I could really do it. But somehow I did. Somehow, God did.
When you out of the blue do something crazy with your life like the World Race at 21 years old, people notice. So, if you’re one of those people reading this who knew me maybe briefly or maybe not well at all at whatever season of my life our lives crossed paths, I want to speak directly to you. Maybe you know the Lord or maybe you don’t. But I want to clear up any confusion or spark in your eyes that looks at my life and thinks “look what she did!” Because not a single moment of this was a product of anything that I’m capable of. Every single moment of the last eleven months of my life screams of the goodness, provision, grace, mercy, and deep, deep love of the Lord. He did all this through me, but not because of anything that I am. He did this through my 31 other squadmates, through hundreds of World Racers who have gone before me and hundreds who will come after. I want to challenge you dear friend to recognize, accept, and live into the truth that He can do it through you too. Yes, you. Stop doubting yourself and stop doubting God. Surrender. Give Him your crazy, impossible dreams. Run to the Father. Then watch as He turns your life upside down and into something far more beautiful than you could ever imagine.
This is a call to the ones who are no longer content with chasing what the world tells us we should want. To the ones who are ready to sell out for the sake of the Gospel. To the ones passionate about sincere kindness and those willing to lead with love. No, you don’t have to leave your life, pack up and leave for the World Race. But you can change your life in your own way, whatever it may look like for you. You do have to swallow your pride and say goodbye to living of the world, ready to take up the kingdom of heaven as your country and the early Acts church as your culture. You may be broken, and you may feel like the least adequate person in the world for such a calling. But I can assure you broken bones tell stories, and broken bones change the world.
I traveled around the world in 322 days this year. What I’m asking myself today as I enter a new season of life, what I’m challenging and asking you today dear friend, is what can you do in the next 322 days? What can you do today? My World Race has ended, but the rest of my life has just begun. I’m praying you nor I ever grow content in stagnation or the mundane. We were made for so much more.
