World Race Recap (Part 2)
I’m not even going to pretend like I know how to recap the last year. I’m not going to come close to what it entails through a few comments either. I believe I would need months of processing and writing to attempt to do so, however, as a glimpse I wanted to put together a few pictures from each country I visited and a brief description of what I did:
11 countries, 11 months, 1 backpack, 1 tent and a serious lack of personal hygiene.
11 months of living in poverty, 11 ministries, and 1 fractured heart from an amazing,
soul-searching year.
- Hyderabad, India: This is the month where my world came crashing down. Ok, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I can vouch for the saying that if anything could go wrong, it DID go wrong. Combatting cyclones and poisonous snakes, living in a village unfound a map, praying over every.single.person in every “nearby” village, running from the Indian FBI, having a contact that hated girl leaders (me), intense team drama, extremely limited clean water and… oh, let’s not forget the heat and rats and dirt. I dispised India, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I learned about myself, God and community in India more than all of the other 10 months combined.
Outside with some of the kids that had school in our living area
The beach about a mile from our church
Boys on bikes, watching the baptisms we instructed in the cow washing pond
Where all of our meals were made by the pastor’s wife and friend
Our tents inside the church we stayed at- to keep the rats from crawling on us
Teaching at the school
House visits and praying in a village we often spent 2 hours in a tuk tuk getting to
(notice how dirty we started looking)
Outdoor church service, something we did daily
Sitting on a “bench” in a tuk tuk. We often would have 12+ people to a tuk tuk
(smaller than a small car in America)
My team in India, getting ready to go to a local wedding
- Kathmandu, Nepal: My FAVORITE month. Unsung Heroes month #2. Sometimes I wonder if Nepal was my favorite month because I was unsure if I’d ever escape India, but no one can deny the extreme beauty and amazing culture of Nepal. My team trekked into the Himalayas and talked to unreached people groups, encouraging them, sharing about God and teaching them not to use the land as a massive litter box (sanitary things, and such).
Up in the Himalayas with this little munchkin.
It was the first time we experienced cold weather on the Race
Overlooking Kathmandu from the Monkey Temple
Part of Kathmandu’s Monkey Temple. Hundreds of monkeys run wild here
Photo taken from the bus ride, into the Himalayas
My teammate Zach and I on a trek in the Himalayas
My teammate Karla and I, one cold morning in a tiny village in the Himalayas
Showing kids balloons for the first time
Kids that would hang outside of our little wood house in the Himalayas
Photo from the bus ride into the Himalayas
In Kathmandu, Nepal’s Capital
Our village in the Himalayas overlooked Tibet and Nepal
Freezing at night in our little mountain hut. The blue and white curtain served as our “window”
Our team on the last day of trekking in the Himalayas
- Chiang Mai, Thailand: My team and two other teams were paired up with YWAM and living in the top of a café in the popular city of Chiang Mai. This was our first month solely focused on getting trafficked girls from bars. I found this ministry was the closest linked to my soul and potential future plans.
Hut at our first hostel in Thailand
Inside a temple in Chiang Mai
Riding elephants
Bamboo River Rafting
Going out for my birthday in Chiang Mai
Temples like this were all over Chiang Mai
Lighting lanterns on Christmas
Hiking to “Sticky Falls” on Christmas
Christmas day at “Sticky Falls,” where the rocks under the water were porous
and non-slippery to hike up and down
Petting the elephant after my elephant ride
Part of our daytime ministry was painting
… or cleaning up all the paint we spilled on the floor
One of the few pictures taken of bar ministry-
Pictures were not taken to respect the identity of the girls
Owen Siebring’s Video from Thailand
Part 3 is soon to come!
