Hello Everyone! Caroline here to answer the question I know you’re all dying to ask…”Now that the World Race is over, what’s next?”
Let me tell you, that’s a good question. It’s one Alex and I have been periodically asking each other for a year now!
Before the race I had a few grand ideas: maybe we would go to one of these 11 countries and fall in love with it and we would move there for the rest of our lives! Or maybe we would get home and pick up and move to some random state, just because we could! I had a million ideas of what we could do, and Alex and I would (and still do) have every opportunity to go anywhere and everywhere!
After a year on the field though what I thought I would want at this point has changed quite a bit! That restlessness that I felt in the years before leaving for the race has been replaced with desire to have a steady community. A place where I can pour into the same people for months, or even years, at a time. I am desiring some steadiness in my life.
So now I will share with you the news: Alex and I are coming home to Hoschton/ Gainesville for the foreseeable future. Both of us are ready to be home, to be with our family, and to do life with a community that we have both heartily missed this year.
To be honest, we do not have many detailed plans for when we get home. We know in the very short term our goal is just to rest. A year is a long time to be serving and pouring out, and we will need a little bit of down time before jumping back into everything.
We do know that our over arching goal for 2017 is to get out of debt. We will be making some life style changes (such as eating out less, living as minimalist, possibly working more then one job, etc.) in order to accomplish that goal! So the mantra for 2017 is DEBT FREE BY 2018! We will be getting jobs (somewhere currently unknown to us) to accomplish that goal starting in January.
Until we start working our only goal is to enjoy our community back in America. We will be setting up dinner dates, seeing family, enjoying the holidays, eating way too much, going to my brother’s wedding, meeting several new babies that were born while we were away, enjoying chick-fil-a, mexican, and BBQ, driving in a car by ourselves just because we can, watching Gilmore girls and Anne of Green Gables, and just over all enjoying some freedom and community.
Maybe all of this sounds like we don’t really have plans at all…and to be honest we don’t have many, but I’m really ok with that. I am excited to see everyone back home and I am trusting to Jesus to reveal more of the details in the right time.
In the meanwhile, pray for us as we say goodbye to our other World Racers and enter in to this brand new season!
I love you all, and I’ll be seeing you soon. <3
