We went from Ethiopia to Canada to Costa Rica to Nicaragua… dang. To help you grasp those dates it was March 1st when we left Ethiopia, March 2nd in Canada, March 3rd in Costa Rica and March 7th when we got to Nicaragua! 🙂
Leaving Ethiopia was extreme culture shock. Getting to that airport and being on WiFi for the first time since Midpoint debrief which was still for a short amount of time. Calling my Mom and dad for the FIRST time since December 10th. Seeing all the notifications on Instagram, Facebook and messaging. It was a lot.
We then boarded an airplane from Ethiopia > Dublin > Canada. We didn’t get off the plane in Dublin so it was crazy long. To be honest, I slept the whole time, it was great. It was probably a mixture of all the tears of saying goodbye to Ethiopia and all the tears of saying hello to my parents. It’s exhausting!
When we landed in Canada it was snowing and it was the first time we had been in the western world in 6 months. It was strange and cold, like really cold. I’m talking in the negatives and we were coming off of 9 months of straight summer. WE LOVED IT! Grabbing our bags and running outside to play in the snow. Feeling the need to put on an actual sweatshirt and buying hot coffee at Starbucks.
I decided to stay in the airport all day for our 10 hour layover mostly because God was saying, “girl ya need to process”. A couple of girls stayed behind with me to watch the bags as everyone else went out. I’m typically a person to jump onto the adventure train real fast but I knew I needed to wait this one out.
We did Tim Hortons and Starbucks which was great!!
Appreciation moment for my squad leaders… they went SKIING/SNOWBOARDING. I know they are the coolest even if they froze, totally worth it.
Being in the Canadian airport really consisted of calling my family. I was mad at myself for not sitting down and processing but at the end of the day I realized how much I had processed by talking to people who had no idea what I had just gone through. Especially my mama, she just knows??
Also, just cuz again I have the coolest squad leaders, Taylor organized an entire flash mob with practices and everything. We performed it in the Toronto airport, it’s actually on my Facebook if you wanna see it!
I’ve never not liked travel days in fact I absolutely love them but this one in particular was so much fun being in Canada with my fam bam, dancing our way to Central America!
The plane ride from Canada to Costa Rica was one for the books…. we were SO exhausted and were reaching the breaking point of traveling. We had left the compound 2 days prior at that point making it roughly 40 hours. I actually had lice treatment in my hair and ringworm on my face, just normal world race things! I believe that’s probably why I was so done at this point. I wanted to shower SO bad!!
We then hopped on a bus and made our way to La Montana Christian Camp where we had our awakening (which is when all squads in surrounding countries get together for a conference led by AIM people who fly in).
It was really disorienting getting off of our bus in the middle of night, in so much humidity and not knowing where we were.
We all pretty much grabbed our bags and hit the hay.
The next morning I woke up to one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.
(Insert pictures!!)
Walking outside and standing there for a good 5 minutes, eyes opened wide and jaw dropped.
I think the best part for a lot of us was that first meal there. After eating straight carbs for three months we went down to the dining hall for BEANS, RICE, EGGS AND FRUIT!!! I’m pretty sure the men on my squad had at LEAST three plates each. It was incredible and I could feel my body thanking me for finally putting a balanced meal in my stomach.
Ethiopia gave me a new appreciation of getting the choice of what I eat and I’m thankful for that because the meals in Central America wouldn’t be so good to us if we hadn’t had gone through the meals in Ethiopia!
That afternoon all the other squads came and I have never felt so much social anxiety in my life! Everyone on my squad would just laugh because we had legit lost our social skills with other Americans, especially teens and we had a hundred coming in…
We had Gap Squad R, they went to training camp and Launched with us. They had spent the three last months in Costa Rica and then after Awakening would be traveling to Honduras for another three months.
Next was Squad Q, they were 11n11 but only launched in January. They had been in Nicaragua (the exact place we were going after Awakening). After they headed to Costa Rica for a month.
Finally, we had semesters with us. It was the first launch of semesters which was super cool to hear how it was going! They were in Costa Rica I think for all three months of their trip.
And then us plus all the guest speakers, squad leaders, mentors, and base missionaries through The World Race.
After the Initial shock of so many of us, we had SUCH A BLAST!
We were by far the loudest squad and it would normally just make me laugh as I joined into the chaos. There was this one meal though, I was sitting with Taylor and we were talking about how loud we were because it wasn’t like our squad is obnoxiously loud, like it wasn’t that loud in the living room of Hope… Taylor reminded me that our squad was loud because we were comfortable with each and treated each other like family.
I looked around and I saw it clear as day, my family! I thank God for sending us to Ethiopia where we had no choice but to choose into each other because there was nothing that would really distract us.
Battambang was particularly hard for us because of all the distractions.
I loved Awakening so much I was sad to leave but we hopped back on a couple of buses, waited out a car accident for 5 hours, passed through boarder customs and wallah (is this how you spell this Kirstat?) we had made it Reap, Granda, Nicaragua!
It was definitely an exhausting week from start to finish but I wouldn’t have had it any other way!
ADOPT A MONTH!
SEPTEMBER (TAKEN!!! YAYAYA!!!!!)
OCTOBER (TAKEN!!!!! WAAHOOOOOO)
NOVEMBER (TAKENNNNNN!!!)
DECEMBER (taken!!! Whoop whoop!!)
JANUARY (taken!! THANK YOU!!!)
FEBRUARY (TAKEN!!!!!!!)
MARCH (NEEDED!!!)
APRIL (NEEDED!!!!!!)
MAY 31st flying into Florida
June 3rd flying H O M E !
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Ways YOU can Join me on my Spiritual Journey:
1. Pray. I will need a multitude of prayers ranging from strength, wisdom, clarity, love, joy… The list goes on. Whatever your heart desires and feels right, pray. Here in Ethiopia we have a little boy at the orphanage who’s legs don’t work, pray healing over his body please!
In Nicaragua pray for jobs, most of the country is unemployed and it’s really taking a toll on families, pray for God’s provision to these people.
- SPREAD THE WORD! Tell everyone about my trip and show them my blog.
- SUBSCRIBE! When you subscribe you will get all notifications when I post on my blog about my trip and any updates!
- If you would like to donate to me still, please donate directly to me and not World Race. I AM FULLY FUNDED but I am now raising money for flights!! I need to buy 3 plane tickets for my trip home on June 3rd and for PSL which is a week long “after the race” conference in Georgia at the end of June. Thank you for everyone who has donated already, it’s been an incredible journey!
Venmo me : Marguerite-SanMartino
