From day one of even thinking about going on the World Race, I have been hearing this everywhere I turn:
"Get rid of your expectations!"
Right. About that.
Hate to break it to ya guys….but that is pretty much impossible. We all constantly have expectations for every single little thing that we do, from what we expect our breakfast to taste like, to how we expect the beach condo to be the same as last year, to how we expect certain people to send gaudy Christmas cards every year. Trying to live without any expectations is like trying to erase your entire mental picture of anything in your future.
So! In light of this, I figured I might as well address this issue head-on and go ahead and put some of my expectations out there! This way, as this whole adventure progresses, I can look back on this list and laugh at how my expectations were mostly way off the mark and probably quite hilarious in retrospect. Let's just focus on pre-race expectations for now, since those are the ones mainly on my mind. Forgive the rambly, long-windedness. For those of you who love me enough to stick with me and actually read all this…God bless you. I am trying to learn how to be more witty and charming and precise and generally appealing in my blogging. Tips are appreciated! 🙂 Oh, and comments at the bottom, of course!
Shall we?!?!
Expectations for fundraising…
-well I can go ahead and start off on the right foot here by saying my expectations for this were way off (ha!) already.
-did not think I was going to be nearly as stressed or overwhelmed as I am.
-did not seem to really comprehend "$3500 by October 1" as a real number and expected that I would not be worried about this, or any of the other deadlines. I am. This is proving to be a much bigger test of my trust in the Lord's provision than I expected.
-having begun the process of sending out support letters, I worry and expect that some people will throw them straight in the trash and be irritated that I wrote them with any expectation for money of any amount.
-I expect fundraising events to stress me out more that just about anything else about preparation. Those close to me know that I am terrible at detail-oriented event-planning type things. I always tell my sister and close friends that they are going to be 100% responsible for planning my wedding one day…all I will do is show up! I hope that I am able to figure these events out with full faith in God's Hand in the details, cause goodness knows that if it were up to me I would probably accidentally send out invitations without a location or time on them!
-I expect that God WILL show me His power and sovereignty in this, and that it will be an incredibly faith-building experience. The way I look at it, God has already allocated this money, He just hasn't shown me where it is yet. God has total control and ownership of all the money in the world….why in the world should I sit around and worry that He won't be able to help me obtain the money that I need?
Expectations for other preparation:
-I keep expecting people to be unreceptive to my plans for some reason. I guess because a lot of people I have told about it aren't believers, and I think I expect them to think I am joining some crazy cult or that I am going off the deep end or something. Luckily, so far people are mostly just encouraging, aside from the occasional "Do you realize you could DIE doing this?" Right. Fantastic point. But what better way to die than to know I was passionately going after what God called me to do and serving Jesus, right?
-I expect that I will eventually just throw my hands up and buy whatever gear presents itself in that moment. I mainly don't want to end up with a pack that will kill my back. But this seems like the sort of thing you can't really know until you are halfway around the world and crying in pain. For all the other gear stuff….I kind of just stare at all of it without really processing any of the details…luckily my ol dad has his specialty here and is most helpful. 🙂
-I expect to continue to be irritated that my medical insurance offers no help whatsoever with immunizations. I also expect to be a bit freaked out after talking to an infectious disease doctor about how to prepare for the medical risks I will encounter (YEEK I really don't want a tapeworm!).
-I expect my year worth of car payments to continue to loom over my head like a giant, attention-seeking monster until God shows me how to best handle it.
-I expect to have random moments of doubt about doing this, and moments where the thought of everything I have to do to prepare to be so exhausting that I just want to give up and go lay in my bed and read and take a nap. But I expect to never be able to do this because I will feel too guilty to not be accomplishing anything.
-I expect to feel sort of like I am living a double life….one Bethany continues to run her errands, go to work, hang out with friends, etc. The other Bethany is pretty much already on the World Race in her mind and is constantly thinking about it or doing something else to prepare.
-I expect to later look back on preparation with fond memories, though I don't think I will realize this until much later.
-I expect to be challenged to remember not to put quiet time with God on the backburner while there is so much to be done, and that whenever I focus on peace in His Presence, I will be rejuvenated. This has been true so far. 🙂
Expectations for training camp:
-for it to remind me of Senior High Camp at Calvary Baptist Church when I was a teenager, only on an even larger scale! I really want us to have great praise and worship time and have songs that we leave saying "Awww, this song will always reminds us of training camp!" I know that that is embarrassingly cheesy, but you know how a song can trigger an emotion and memory quicker than anything? I particularly love it when Jesus music does that.
-I expect to do fun team-building activities and all those goofy other little things that you do when 50 young people are just hanging out (sans beer, football, cell phones, facebook, work, etc. to distract them).
-I expect to have to be much more spiritually honest and open than I ever have been, and to somehow allow 50+ complete strangers to get to know my ugliest and most unlovable sides in just a few days.
-ok here is a really honest one: I expect to be uncomfortable or just generally unaccustomed with some of the ways people might worship….speaking in tongues? definitely never seen or been exposed to that. People really thinking "I don't care what people think" and just falling down on their knees to worship God is not something I have seen on a regular basis, although I really admire people that are able to worship in however they feel led and not care how others perceive them. I know that God leads people to worship in all sorts of different ways and is glorified in anything that is a demonstration of someone's heart truly being committed to Him, so I expect and look forward to getting to break out of the little box that my worship lives in.
-subpar and not enough food. I am going to have to learn how to not care about food too much….might as well start here! Apparently bland and small portions is how they accustom you to what to expect, but most of the other WR blogs seem to tell me that food is in abundance to Racers even when not to local people, which will be extremely difficult to be a part of involuntarily.
-I expect that somewhere around, say, day 4, after a particularly spiritually and physically exhausting day, to be cold and hungry and tired and homesick and irritated and think to myself "How in the world am I going to do this for 11 months?" But then to have the Holy Spirit remind me that personal discomfort is going to be an awesome way for me to learn and grow in faith.
-I expect to be surprised at how quickly I come to feel very close to my squad mates, and expect to leave feeling much less anxious about spending a year away from home having met my squad.
-I expect some people to be immediate new best friends and some people to kind of get on my nerves sometimes….hey, we are all human, there is really no way around that when you are living with and being asked to expose your heart to 50 complete strangers!
-I expect to leave with the impression that God has just given me a small taste of how huge and powerful and capable He is, and to be excited to see how He is going to be our Leader across the globe next year!
Expectations for the last couple of weeks before leaving:
-I expect to walk around saying "I feel weird" all the time. This is a saying my sister and some of my friends and I use a lot when we can't quite put our finger on it when something is a little off. Or, to put it another way "I'm in a funk." Being in a funk isn't necessarily a bad thing, it is just a general feeling you have when you are in some transitional stage in life and can't quite seem to shut your brain up or figure out why you feel weird (see earlier definition). I am pretty sure I will walk around not actually accomplishing anything a lot for the last couple of weeks, but mostly just stressing about what all I should be doing.
-I expect my sweet little mama to be very tearful and anxious. I hope by then I will have been shown how to help her rather than dismiss her concerns, or walk around telling her to "Just don't worry! God will take care of me!" Easier said than done, evidently, when God is sending your baby girl into countries that are still recovering from horrific genocides that we used to see on the news, it is pretty difficult for a mama not to worry. I will continue to pray for her, and expect that God will use this opportunity to bring her closer to Him just like He will me!
-I expect my dad to have many last-minute items and lists that he will be helping me with, and ideas for me to consider. Also, his usual stream of super-encouraging comments about how proud he is, interlaced with his concerns of me being "beheaded by Indonesian head hunters." (a direct email quote…he never fails to make me laugh, even when talking about something serious). 🙂
-I expect my sister to constantly say things like "It is going to be so weird not seeing you for a year!" alternating with "Beffy, what am I going to do without you for a year? I'm going to be in such a funk!" Luckily, she will have an upcoming trip to Jamaica to distract her!
-I expect my brother to tell me he is going to miss me using various funny tones and made-up expressions, and to marvel at the fundraising I will (God-willing!) have completed by then. He tends to do that sort of thing…which always provides us with lots of entertainment. 🙂
-I expect be stressed about losing my "important documents" (I have a history of doing this for trips…sorry Charlie…) and about worrying if I packed the right stuff. Pretty sure I will put stuff in and out of my pack on an hourly basis right up until I leave.
-I expect to be on the verge of some sort of emotional overload explosion when I am saying goodbye to everyone for the last time. Excited, scared, panicked, relieved, anxious, uncertain….I mean, you name it, I bet I will be feeling it! I don't know if I will cry or choose to avoid the tears and do the cheerful goodbye and walk away before you start to cry.
So there ya go. I will try and remember to re-address this list later on and say how each of these things actually ended up happening. I am sure I will be super busy (there I go with expectations again), so feel free to remind me if I forget and you are curious!
