This morning I woke up, walked down the road with Haile and Angela to get some chai tea, came back to the mission base and had a worship service with the rest of the YWAM missionaries. After the service we were invited to go upstairs for a Bridal Shower for one of the YWAM staffers from Chile who was getting married to a local Bangalore man who also works at YWAM. We played games at the shower, ate yummy food and there were even gerber daisy flowers there, which I haven’t seen in 11 months! After the shower the bride, Lissette, informed us that we were all officially invited to her half Chilean, half Indian wedding this Monday night. I was ecstatic, because I haven’t been to a wedding yet this year and I’d been praying to see a wedding in one of the countries on the World Race. I ended my morning but doing all my laundry in our tiny bathroom via buckets and tubs, slightly smelly Indian tap water, and a tiny bag of “Tide Plus” all written in Hindi. I got to my new white and tourquise punjabi top that had some mud on it from the other day at ministry (it’s monsoon season here and it rains a lot which means anything white is a bad idea) and as I was vigorously attempting to scrub the mud out of it I thought to myself, “I only have three more weeks of this life…then it’s back to normal.” Normal.
I hate that word: normal. I mean, do I miss my washer and dryer? YES! Of course I do…especially after I’m exhausted from the work out of handwashing all my clothes in a bucket on a floor. Do I miss having my own space and my own time? DEFINITELY…living in a room with eleven other women, never being able to find anything because everyone’s things are mixed in together in a black hole of death can be frustrating. Do I miss laying in a bed and not wondering if I’m going to get bitten by bed bugs? Well, duh. But at the same time, I don’t want this year to end. I can’t come to terms with the fact that in 20 days, the Race will be over. I’ll be home. I won’t live with my team and see them every day. There will be no more nightly team meetings, giving feedback and encouragement. There will be no more crazy ministry contacts who we can’t actually understand most of the time but love more than life. In three weeks, I won’t walk down the street and have people blatantly stare at me and run up to me (OK adults don’t usually run at me, but kids definitely do). I won’t get to see 60 of my favorite people at the end and beginning of every month. It’s going to end. Forever. And that’s a concept that’s hard for me to accept.
If any of you have seen “Tangled,” the Disney princess movie about Rapunzel that came out this last year, you will remember the part of the movie when Rapunzel leaves her tower for the first time ever and she goes back and forth from being absolutely thrilled and completely devastated. Finally after screaming with joy and then sobbing uncontrollably and then yelling with fear, the leading man tells her, “I’m sensing some inner termoil. I feel like you’re at war with yourself.” I have never related with anything more in my life. I start thinking about seeing my family and friends and I want to cry thinking how great it’s going to be hugging and kissing them. Then I think about how the incredible adventure of traveling the world is going to be over and I am devastated. Then I realize that I’ve made some of the most amazing friendships this year with my team and my squad and we will be separated all over the States and I want to cry. Then I get frustrated because I don’t know my exact plans for the future. Then I get angry because another mosquito bit me during my string of high emotions. Do you see what I’m talking about? CRAZY MOOD SWINGS…all thanks to the Race ending and my old life starting up again.
Here’s another movie analogy for you…I also feel like the character, Lucy at the end of the “Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader” when Aslan informs Lucy and Edmund that they will no longer be coming back to Narnia and Lucy asks “Aslan will we ever meet with you in our world?” and when he tells them they will and she asks how, Aslan replies, “Because there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” I knew Jesus before (obviously) and I had a relationship with the Trinity before the World Race, but there was still so much I had to learn on this adventure this year. Before Training Camp in July of 2010, I hadn’t been taught how to let the Spirit lead me, live boldly and courageously as a woman of honor, speak life over myself and others instead of death, prophesy in the Spirit and pursue the Lord’s calling on my life. I was still semi-legalistic and I continued putting God in a “box” when I would tell everyone I otherwise. Now that the adventure is almost over I realize that I feel like Lucy from Narnia…sad that the adventure’s over but trusting God (Aslan) that I will take the lessons I’ve learned and apply them further and deeper in my own world. I refuse to go back to “normal” and I refuse to allow myself to think in the mind set that I have to go back to “normal” in 20 days.
I have grown so much, learned so much, come so far and I can’t go back to who I was and I hope everyone realizes that I will not be the same Angie. I mean…I will, but just a stronger, more Spirit-led version of the old Angie. 🙂 Just because the Race is ending doesn’t mean the adventure is. When I did “Semester at Sea” in the Summer of 2009 we heard a quote that I love. “This isn’t the adventure of a lifetime. This is just the beginning of a lifetime of many adventures.” The way they applied that quote during my study abroad experience in the Mediterranean is the same way I’m applying it to my World Race epic. I realized after the laundry was all hung up on the ropes of our balcony, with our view of a Hindu temple, three cows and some trash in the background…that this isn’t the end of my adventure, but just the beginning. Yes, I am so sad to see my time of the Race come to an end. The closer August 31st comes the more my team mate, Paul Bell, calls me “a Six Flags of emotions”…I’m up one minute and down the next, thinking about the huge, emotional change coming our ways. I’m already thinking logistically how it’s going to be possible for me to say my “good byes” to all my friends at Final Debrief in New Delhi in two weeks, and making sure that our team has one last night together at a nice restaurant one of those nights at Debrief. I’m worried that I won’t be able to visit everyone all the time and they won’t be able to come visit me. These are the things that are keeping me up at night. That being said though, I know that God has a LIFETIME of adventures coming my way and that the bonds I’ve made with my World Race family this year can never be severed or forgotten.
I’ve seen the Kingdom of God throughout the Nations, I’ve been privileged enough to BRING the Kingdom of God to the Nations and now I can never go back to anything else but that. In one way or another, that is my passion and my commitment for my life. Romans 10:15 says, “And how can they preach if they are not sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the Good News.” I am commited to Bringing Kingdom wherever I go, simple as that. So I’m sad that I will no longer be in “Narnia” with “Aslan” as I like to call it, but I know that I just need to take the growth I’ve had here with Jesus and apply it FURTHER to my “real” life in the future. I want to end by saying that I love you all. This Race has been just as much YOUR Race as it has been mine. Whether you’re in my biological family reading this (or my God parents), in my FPC church family…you’re a spiritual mentor, a friend, or a friend of a friend…I want to thank you for prayers and love this year. By reading this blog you bring me so much encouragement and joy, which I don’t think you realize. I get so excited reading all the comments you all have and reading the e-mails I get of thoughts, musings, scriptures, joy and insight. YOU have made all this possible this year and I want to thank YOU for allowing God to use you during this time. Thank you specifically for praying against malaria and for my mosquito bites…which I wrote about in my last blog of our travel day adventures, they are thankfully going away! Praise the Lord! Please, please, please keep praying for a STRONG FINISH to the end and smooth transition home, however. I know it will be hard for me, but I know by the grace and power of God I will get through it…stronger and brighter than ever. 🙂
