This year has been exactly and not at all what I thought it would be.
I laugh to think of myself the night before coming to launch. Clothes strewn across the house. Crying because not everything I wanted to bring would fit in my bag. Walking in a circle in the living room for 30 minutes thinking “What the HECK did I just get myself into?” I didn’t have words at the time to describe my emotional state but I now know its called a “Hot mess express.”
I dreaded the thought of living with people, in this thing called community. After the first week of community in Costa Rica I knew something had to give. The days were filled with people… EVERYWHERE and the blistering sun that burned our tender winter skin. The nights were filled by mosquitoes and banging from the people playing dutch blitz downstairs. My nightly prayers consisted of something like. “My dear God in Heaven keep these people safe from me!”
Much has happened from then to now.
I have been pushed, pulled, stretched, torn, broken and pieced back together… emotionally and spiritually.
I have been crammed, jammed, packed, stuffed, piled, shoved, and layered in to buses, pickup beds, taxi’s, tuk-tuks, sontails, boda- bodas, motos, rickshaws, boats, airplanes, and trains.
I’ve slept on top of bags in airports, bus stations, & trains stations, in windblown tents, churches, hammocks, dirty floors, haunted houses, beside gang members outside a shady hospital in Honduras, hostels with random naked men in the bathroom, mountain villages, in a sauna (Which some people call Thailand), and with more bugs, spiders, mice, and mosquitoes than I can count.
Just about any part of me has been stared at, touched, squeezed, slapped, scratched, pinched, sat on, licked, kissed, jiggled, or hit by men women and children on 3 continents. In turn, I have culturally offended people in at least 8 of the 11 countries.
I have fallen up stairs, down mountains, in fields and out of bus seats. I have tripped over walls, rocks, shoes, chairs, cows, tents, people, sewers, sidewalks, escalators, and anything else you can imagine.
I have stepped on glass, sticks, pointy rocks, tacks, metal shards, thorns, and plants that sting. I have had bugs called jiggers embed themselves in my toes and lost a few toenails.
I have had more bruises and blisters than I can count, and mystery rashes and diseases that come and go, I’ve been stung by jelly fish, been electrocuted, been held up at gun point, had typhoid, and a series of crazy dentist visits that ended in a bone infection.
I have showered with spiders and lizards crawling on me, with scum on the floor, in shabby wooden structures, outdoors behind bushes, in a tent with baby wipes, with buckets, cups, or not at all.
I have also
walked over burning coals, rode an elephant, watched the sun rise on a mountain side in Nepal, swam in the Nile, walked barefoot in the red clay of Kenya. eaten amazing food all over the world and got really good at pretending to eat the not so amazing food. And done The Perkalerk willingly, even though I swore I never would.
I have held and kissed hundreds and hundreds of children. I have been there to see the light of hope break across the face of one who has lived their life in darkness. I have learned to pray like I never knew I could. I have seen people healed, and been healed myself. I have believed for the impossible and seen it happen.
I watched as the people that I started this journey with grew and were set free. I have been set free just by taking part of their journey. The community that I feared to embrace has changed me in ways I never imagined. What I know now, and wish I knew that night packing for the beginning…is that everything that I gave up and everything I would go through this year was worth it a hundred times over. My eyes have been opened to God in a whole knew light and it has been my joy and privilege to praise Him with amazing people in eleven countries.
P.S. I have other “make-up” blogs coming soon!
