1. Travel days turn into travel daze
Traveling from Swaziland to Argentina was the longest “travel day” we’ve had on the whole race, totaling at nearly 80 hours of travel! I always enjoy travel days because of time spent with friends, free plane food, and catching up on new movies I’ve missed. Traveling to South America included all of these things, but it also included craziness like the longest flight I’ve ever taken, sleeping overnight in the airport, losing my jacket, and a whirlwind of a day in Buenos Aires. It was definitely a time to remember! I actually wrote a blog about it, you can check out the full details here.
2. Always wake up for the sunrise
Over the past year I’ve made it a point to wake up early for at least one sunrise in each country. In Mendoza the sun didn’t rise until about 7:15, which meant that I got to see the sunrise just about everyday. I was blown away every time! The sunrises in Argentina were hands down the best I’ve seen in my whole life. The sky was such crazy colors that it looked like an over-filtered Instagram picture, and u could t believe I was seeing it with my own eyes.
3. YWAM and AIM partnering together
I’ve grown up hearing about the organization Youth With A Mission, better known as YWAM, because my church partnered with them for several mission trips. A lot of times when we meet missionaries from the States they ask us if we are World Racers of YWAMers. The organizations are both well established and doing great things, and the two organizations got to join forces for the month! We spent our month in Argentina at the Mendoza YWAM base. It’s amazing to experience two different groups coming together, because we really are just one big group of brothers and sister in Christ trying to reach the nations.
4. The simple life in el campo
One of the types of ministry we got to do involved going to the desert, or what they like to call ‘el campo’, to visit the people that lived there. Our visits involved drinking mate (their local tea), transporting goats, riding horses, and spending time with locals. El campo was very secluded by a 45 minute drive into the desert, so we got to spend a simple life for a few days. I enjoyed getting to see a different side of Argentina besides the city. Our team bonded by cooking on the fire, feeding animals, and playing games in evenings. The few days spent in el campo were some of my favorite of the month!
5. I should have studied more in high school
So here’s the deal: I studied Spanish in school for 3 years…and I remembered almost none of it! I had to relearn all of the basics that I was sure I wouldn’t forget. My squad has all shared stories about how we accidentally told a taxi driver we have children and how we said “We cooked children” instead of “We taught children.” It’s definitely been quite an interesting time trying to refresh our Spanish skills! I tend to rely on basic nouns and charades to get my point across. Luckily, there’s a few members of my team that can speak Spanish pretty well. As a team leader I’ve really been thankful for Zack and his ability to translate schedules and logistics for me. He’s been a champ and a blessing for our team!
6. How to make empeñadas
If you didn’t know, empeñadas are a really popular food in Argentina (I didn’t know either). They were sold in just about every store we passed, and we even saw them being sold out of a car trunk once. When we asked our YWAM friends about it they said that we needed to have an empeñada party. Food? Celebration? Of course I was excited about that. Two of our friends taught us how to make them from scratch, and once they were finished we had them with mate and local music playing in the background. It was one of the fondest memories for my team!
7. Reliving camp (again)
I got to relive the full-blown camp counselor experience back in South Africa, but one thing it was lacking was high ropes. Part of our ministry in Mendoza ended up including facilitation the ropes course for kids. I felt so in my element! We even got to go through the course as a team to make sure we could run through it with the kids. Working at camp was a big and impactful part of my life, so I’ve been lucky that God has placed me at ministries that remind me of those days.
8. I love dogs
So before I left for the race I opted out of getting the rabies vaccination, and my mom said that meant I couldn’t pet random dogs around the world. Sorry mom, but I’ve done a terrible job following that suggestion! I’m actually known as the one on my team that loves to pet the dogs the most, oops. It’s been over half a year since I’ve seen my pup at home, and I’ve been missing her a ton. I know God knew that because he placed us at a base that had about 15 dogs roaming around. I loved it! I spent my free time playing with all the dogs, and one or two would even go running with me. It was a sweet and simple blessing for me over the month that I didn’t expect, and it’s amazing to see God loving me even in the little things!
9. I’m coming home…
…well, not yet. At the end of the month we had a squad debrief in Mendoza. It’s a time that we get to process, debrief with leadership, listen to our squad mentor drop some wisdom, and just spend time together before heading to our next country. This was our second to last debrief, and we got some pretty important information regarding the end of our journey. We found out that we will be flying out of Peru and into the UNITED STATES on August 20th, and I will be flying back home to Texas on the 22nd. WHAT?! Getting this information has made coming home all too real. In one way I feel like I just boarded my first plane to India, and in another way I forget what being home is even like. It’s going to.l be so surreal finishing up this journey and starting the next chapter (blog about that soon).
10. Snow days in May
I’m from Texas, and it doesn’t really snow at home. It DEFINITELY doesn’t snow in May. Since we have been in Argentina we have been experiencing opposite seasons as back home. The whole squad was supposed to leave for Chile, but on the day of our departure we found out that the roads were closed due to snow. Meanwhile, my friends and family are starting to go to the beach back home. Ha! Luckily the roads had cleared by the next day, and we were able to take a very scenic ride through the Andes and across the border.
11. Every day can be an adventure if you choose to say “yes!”
Like I mentioned, we had a pretty crazy time traveling to Argentina. Once we got to the Buenos Aires airport my team had a layover for 12 hours before loading on a bus to Mendoza. We could have used those 12 hours to rest at the airport or bus station, but that’s not how my team likes to do it! We did our research and tried to squeeze in as much adventure as we could in those 12 hours. We managed to visit a famous cemetery, went to a cathedral, ate some delicious barbecue, played music with locals, watched Zack skate around the city, see what we called the “exploding bean” (like in Chicago), dance in a Beauty and the Beast ballroom, admire some art museums, and wandered into an Italian music festival. Needless to say, we were exhausted when loading on our bus, but it was worth the memories!
