Spotting a red corner poking out of the dirt, I bend down for the 100th time to fish a brick out of the rubble and haul it across the construction site to the pile of bricks on the other side.
Everything in my body hurts… My arms throb, my back aches, my knees groan, and my fingers are blistered and cracked.
Less than two months left on this adventure and all I can think about is the fact that my roommate is getting married today, and I’m not there to celebrate with her. It takes every ounce of will power not to drop my gloves, grab my pack and catch the first plane home.
I knew coming onto the race that there would be times like this. I knew that there would be things that I’d miss out on at home, but I figured it would just be events like birthdays that come around every year, not once in a lifetime events like weddings.
It could be worse, I thought. We could be sitting here twiddling our thumbs wondering what to do with ourselves, which actually has been the more common situation on the race.
Alternatively, they are making use of every moment of our time and working our bodies to exhaustion. After a carb-loaded, fat-drenched breakfast at 7:30 am, we have six hours of physical labor, followed by a late lunch and quick shower and then five hours of teaching English classes. By the time I fall onto my thin mat on the cement floor at the construction site, I’m fighting to keep my eyes open.
There’s little time to think about much except putting one foot in front of the other, which is fortunate because my thoughts aggregate towards home.
I want so badly to finish well – to press into these last seven weeks, embracing every moment, but honestly, it’s a struggle.
It’s not that I don’t like the ministry – in fact, I love it. Nineteen of us racers are living along side a rugged group of ex-convicts and ex-addicts who have found new life in Christ.
They are an endearing assortment of men with years of stories and kind eyes behind their worn, weathered faces.
We all live together on a construction site, sharing meals, using their squatty potties and single shower, and working side by side to build a church out of the used bricks that we gather from the surrounding rubble.
So it’s not that I mind the physical labor or even the fact that we eat rice mush drenched in pork lard every day…
I’m just tired. I miss my friends. I miss California. I’m traveled out and at the end of myself.
The only thing keeping me going is the truth that when I am weak, He is strong,
The truth that God’s grace is sufficient for me, that He is ENOUGH.
He’s still here with me, quietly whispering to me and spurring me on in the heat of the day. He hasn’t abandoned or forgotten me. Nor does He need me to be energetic or put together. Rather He is the one keeping me going, being my strength and giving me exactly what I need the moment I call out.
I don’t like feeling messy like this, and I really don’t like advertising it. But I need to ask for prayer – primarily for joy and perseverance.
I'm confident that God has called me to 11 months on the World Race, not 9. And with only 52 days left, I want them to be the most fruitful of all.
