Yesterday was our last official day of ministry on the World Race…
Honesty? I’m not excited to come home.
Sure, I’m looking forward to my sleeping in my own bed (I may actually weep tears of joy when I see it!). I can’t wait to eat my mom’s cooking. I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends, sharing coffee and catching up. Only God knows how happy I will be for all the amazing wifi literally EVERYWHERE!
But along with these feelings there is a wide variety of other emotions as well. Even as I write this I struggle to properly put it all into words.
These last 11 months have been beautiful, exciting, strange, tiring, filled with new relationships, adventurous, boring, long, irritating, painful, ridiculous, growth-inspiring, eye-opening, challenging, lonely, and many other things I can’t currently think of.
I have had significant cultural experiences in 18 new countries (if you count thing like layovers and countries we simply drove through, the number is more like 25 but I lost count lol). I was surrounded by and did my best to speak 20 or more foreign languages. My bag is filled with random coinage from at least that many different currencies (some of which I can’t remember the name of, much less the exchange rates).
I want so badly to share everything that has happened with you all. But after 11 months of life changing experiences, it’s hard to know where to begin. What I have tried to articulate is what you can expect from me when I get home:
1. Don’t expect me to launch into a huge, elaborate explanation when you first ask, “How was you trip?”
I’m not sure who wants a polite, 2 second answer and who wants all the stories and deep conversations about cultural differences. So I’m going to play it safe and give you short and polite. But I love the long conversations (especially over food or coffee lol) so if that’s what you want, please let me know!
2. Please don’t expect an intelligent answer to, “What was your favorite country?”
You might as well ask me for my favorite song or my favorite book, I can’t choose! Every country has been different and beautiful in it’s own way. I will not be angry about the question but I genuinely have no answer.
3. Please be aware that my American English is severely lacking.
After being around broken English for so long it’s difficult to even talk at times. I often catch myself using broken sentences, strange slang, unnatural accents, and foreign words all in the same conversation. As someone who has worked to be well spoken, I’m aware it’s a problem. Feel free to correct me lol
4. Expect me to be different
After this trip, I feel more myself and a completely different person all at once. I see the world differently now; I see myself differently. I am both quieter and more outspoken. My definition of words like comfort, poverty, home, family, and church is different. I appreciate many of these things in my own life much more than ever before.
One of the things God has been teaching me is that we are all a “new creation” every single day. Today I am not the person I was yesterday, and neither are you. So I will choose to see you all as new, not expecting certain things or being put out that you have also changed while I’ve been gone. I hope that you will feel the same toward me.
5. My standards of cleanliness and hygiene have changed.
Just this past week, the house we are staying at was without power. For 9 days. To make it worse, the water faucets would electrocute you every time you turned on the water. (Something about the grounding wire, I’m still unsure of the details.) In the US, this would never be stood for. In Swaziland, you just live with it.
So I haven’t washed my hair (or fully bathed) in over a week. You’re probably grossed out reading this but I’m actually ok with it. I wear my clothes until they are TRULY dirty; dirty by African standards. Because hand washing and line drying is hard work! I eat off of plates that are washed everyday with only water. (Dish soap it too expensive to be used for anything except the difficult pot and pans.)
Sometimes We follow the example of the Swazis and eat with our hands. My team and I share silverware and drink after one another with no thought. No one here washes their hands. There are no questions of, “Did you wash your hands before cooking?” (Many of us still do but we would never ask a local this, so why bother with teammates? Lol) If food falls on the floor, I am probably going to pick it up and eat it.
6. I will be grieving
My Race will be over. Finally. It doesn’t seem real even as I write this less than 2 weeks away from that plane ride home. I don’t think it will truly sink in even after I set foot on US soil again. For me, this was not just an 11 month journey. For me. The journey started in January 2015 when I called my best friend Amanda. My conversation with her is what helped me realize how much I wanted this journey in the first place. I spent a year preparing, dreaming, fundraising before I even left.
Now it’s almost over. I have spent 11 months saying goodbye again and again. I have met so many truly amazing people. People who have spoken into my life in meaningful and significant ways. I may never see some of these people again. But as I journeyed from one location to another, I was often unable to truly feel this. Instead, I focused on my next location, the next people I would meet.
Sometimes I feel as though I have chosen to shatter my heart into a hundred pieces so I could leave a small bit of it in every country. In every new location I committed to myself and to God that I would love the ministry and people He gave me without holding back. “Love deeply, hold loosely.” This is a philosophy taught to us in the very beginning. So I have allowed my heart to be broken again and again. I no longer belong to the USA only but to many places and people I may never see again.
I am broken. I don’t know where I belong any more. My community of people I love and trust are scattered across the world more widely than ever before.
Once I’ve been home for awhile, I will finally have time to feel all of this. Plus the loss of my squad/team community. The loss of those people who currently know and understand me better than anyone else in the world. A very significant season of my life has come to an end.
So please be patient with me. Give me grace when I can’t help telling yet another story, or when I don’t feel like talking at all. Be award that I am having to relearn my own culture; I may do or say strange things. Don’t freak out if I randomly start crying, I’m simply readjusting.
