The other day was day 180 on the race!
Almost every day on the race has felt like summer.
Temperature wise it has felt like the middle of May in Michigan for the most part. Nights are
chilly but not cold, the day can be breezy, mostly sunny, and mostly warm. It
has been six and a half months of the end of spring and beginning of summer.
Almost like the seasons haven’t changed.
Being the Michigan
girl that I am, six months of the same weather that doesn’t involve snow is
really starting to freak me out. I also know that things will stay the same and
get hotter for the next four and a half months. By the end of the race it will
be eleven months of summer. I will be ready for the snow to welcome me home.
In the same way, every day on the race has felt like the
beginning of summer in the sense of summer holding something exciting and new.
180 days of waking up wondering what the day will hold.
180 days of life on the field.
180 days of living in community.
180 days of choosing love.
180 days of craziness.
180 days of looking at the beauty in the world.
180 days of looking at the hurt in the world.
180 days of seeing God’s beautiful creation.
As with summer there is also an air of the looming school
year that will come at the end of the glorious summer. My summers in Michigan are full of
beaches and swimming pools, friends, baseball games, family, hotdogs and
hamburgers on the grill. This 6 months of summer doesn’t really have any of
those except my friends who have become my family on the race. We have team
time and we get to know each other better. We go for walks, watch sunsets over
mountains, and have more team time. Even though I am still four and a half
months from coming home I am already getting that “back to school” feeling. Don’t
get me wrong, it is not distracting me from my life here. Every day I cannot
believe that this is my life and I get to do this. It is just that looming
feeling that, yes at some point this will end and the next chapter of my life
will begin. I am positive the next chapter will be just as awesome, scary, fun,
joy filled, challenge filled, and brilliant as this chapter has been. At the
end of 11 months on the field I think I will be ready for summer to be over.
But for now, I will drink some Kenyan Chai, relax in this coffee shop [one of
two in our city with free wifi], enjoy my team and keep pressing in to what the
Lord has for my summer.
Much love,
-A
