Today marks the halfway point for The World Race! WHAT?!?!?!?! I seriously can’t believe that its already halfway over and I have some exciting things to announce later with my plans for after the Race! I am absolutely loving Rwanda and plan on updating about everything that is happening here in another post. But for this post I wanted to do a blog on six things my team has learned while being on the Race for six months, so here goes!
1) Community Is What You Make Of It
– You have a choice to either buy into it or not. My advice would to be buying in, it’s going to be rough and hard at times and living with people everyday in close quarters can be difficult, but so worth it. I’m on my second team of the Race but some of the relationships I developed from my first team will be lifelong friends. I’m trying to take that same approach of being intentional with this new team as well. So push past the difficulties and give it everything you’ve got.
2) You Won’t End With What You Started (Physically and Spiritually)
– You’re most likely not going to have the same clothes or gadgets you started with. I know I personally only have 2 shirts, 2 shorts, and some underwear that I originally brought with me. You’re going to see clothes you love in each country, you’ll lose weight (if you ignore the oreos or have 4 months of manual labor straight), people will drop things at the free table during debrief and you’ll also drop things as well. You’ll learn to not be attached to your stuff.
3) You Will Spend More Money Than You Think
– You’re going to most likely be in a city where its convenient to go to the coffee shop, but city life also means things are more expensive. You’ll have to uber places or pay for a bathroom, you’ll have to do laundry which you pay for more than you think. Adventures days (no one like staying home while everyone else is having fun), but also incidentals, like doctor visits, paying for medicine, your laptop breaking, or having to buy culturally appropriate clothes that are required for your month (If you go to India have some money set aside for this). You may also feel led to buy a bible for someone or help out a church with some kind of expense.
4) Don’t Come With Expectations
– The only expectation you should have is that God will move. Don’t try to put Him into a box and expect the Race to look like all the videos you’ve watched on YouTube, I can guarantee it won’t look like that! You’re also probably going to come into countries with expectations of what ministry will look like, even when you get the setup sheet be prepared for it to change, it happens more than you think. Also your route might change, a country may be taken away or more countries get added or your 24 hour travel day may turn into a 5 day travel day to get to the next country.
– Also, don’t expect to see all the sights in every country. You may be over a days travel away from the big sites to see (my team was 30 hours from Macchu Picchu while in Peru and just as far from the Taj Mahal in India).
5) Kiss Your Personal Space Goodbye
– You’re not going to have personal space so you may as well not expect to have any. But, this is also a good thing, if you’re a messy person it’ll teach you to keep your stuff together. And sorry to all of you out there who are not Physical Touch, you will be after the Race. Eventually you’re going to have to take public transportation, whether this is a bus, a tuk tuk, or a combe in South America. The way they like to do these is cram as many people as they can in them, so expect to have people sitting in your lap, people standing up and being crammed with people on every side, oh and you may also have all of your bags on your back as well. This also teaches you to just be comfortable in uncomfortable situations and it makes for some funny stories later on as well. Think Seven guys crammed in a Tuk Tuk with all your bags and a 3 hour ride with two people on your lap as your host tries to add two more people to the tuk tuk, I think you get the idea.
6) Time
– Your time is precious but so is everyone else’s. You’ll start the Race thinking 11 months is forever then you find yourself in month 6 wondering where the time went. You here all the time that the days are long but the months are fast and it’s so true. It feels just like yesterday that I was getting on the plane to head to Colombia now month 6 is almost over. So make the most of it, stay up late and have those conversations, don’t put the headphones in on the plane or the bus, and talk to those around you.
– A month isn’t a long time, so immerse yourself in the people you meet and the culture around you, yes the goodbyes are hard but you won’t regret doing it. Plus you’re probably going to learn more from people than you’re going to give away.
– Lastly be interruptible, don’t get frustrated that someone wants to take a selfie for the hundredth time, or the kids are standing at the door yelling for you to come out and play when all you want to do is take a nap. You signed up for The Race and part of that means being interruptible, if we can interrupt people to tell them about Jesus then we can also be interruptible to spend time with those same people.
So I hope you find this inciteful, if you’re a future Racer I hope it helps and if you’re on the Race now I hope it reminds us of just how amazing this opportunity is and we can never get this time back so let’s make the most of it!
