Oh my goodness, we have officially surpassed the midway point of the World Race! We are about to take a midnight train into Georgia and move into our 7th month. We have been to 8 different countries and had the honor and privilege to simply live out normal life as the church of Christ. There has been so much fruit and a great deal of pruning in this journey, and there is no place I would rather be.
Anyways, we laugh a great deal about the new “norms” to our lives and routines and I just wanted to share some of them. Many are comical and some will forever change how I live and see the Lord.
The New Normal:
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Grocery shopping in a new currency every month.
On team budget, nearly all our meals are communal which means meal planning, discussing groceries, and looking at budget together ever couple of days. Pretty simple, but our new normal is then taking said list and filtering it through language, currency, and market options. Trust me, when pursuing colorful packages with Arabic, Greek, or Armenian writing, pictures are the key to success! It is hysterical how many times we have grabbed a mysterious package and hoped it was what we were looking for, or how many times we turned a box over to look at ingredients only to realize we can’t make anything out. And no matter how you slice it, the meat section of the grocery store with the language barrier is the riskiest purchase of the day.
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Downloading your next city’s map in the airport.
Working off of WiFi we have found maps.me to be a great ally to navigating. You can download the map of your city on WiFi and then use it off WiFi just like iPhone maps. However, it only takes one time walking out of the airport after landing and realizing you have no idea where you are going or how to get there before you learn to plan ahead better. Ooo and always pin your “home” in that country! It’s very easy to route to a destination and realize you have no idea how to get home haha.
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Hang drying ever article of clothing you own.
It’s truly such an overlooked comfort, but washers and dryers are magical! Hand washing clothing has not been unusual, but generally we are blessed with a washer. However, I have only experienced a dryer once since we left and truth be told, we still had to hang dry our clothes after it. Anyways, hanging laundry lines and pocketing clothes pins is one of our new normals. My favorite was when we hung them from our apartment in Armenia and looked out and all our clothes were freshly topped in a nice layer of snow.
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Google translation fails.
If you have used it Google translate is amazing! It has allowed us to ask minuscule things like where’s the grocery store all the way up to allowing us to share the gospel and honor our friends with words of encouragement. But it is not perfect, and we have both given and received the strangest sentences. My favorite was when my Moroccan friend typed, “my cubs are exploited” into my phone and we just looked at each other for a second before she took the phone back and tried again, based on my puzzled facial expression.
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Walking.
We started off on the right foot with our walking relationship on the Camino. In about 9 days we walked over a 100 miles. After this, we were well acquainted with walking and these 2 legs have carried us just almost everywhere. Occasionally we take taxis or buses but the general assumption is we will walk there. One time my friend and I walked all the way across Beirut from morning till sundown and then finally opted for the 40 minute Uber back home.
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Unintentionally memorizing your team’s wardrobe.
It’s inevitable truly. With one backpack, repeating articles is going to happen. At one point I could actually list every shirt my friend had. But there is a major upside, your team is a great support in designing an outfit because they know exactly what you have or if you are buying a sweater they’ll know what color will match everything else you own.
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Waiting.
Is any travel experience complete without it? You arrive to a place early in hopes of making it on the bus only to find out you have to wait an hour for the next one. Or you schedule a lunch with a friend and they show up an hour and half late. It’s just part of life and ministry. Thankfully waiting is actually something I have come to love!! Whether its a layover or just a grocery line, God is always moving and the still moments are the best ones to listen to Him.
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Family style dinners.
I’m so incredibly thankful this is a new normal! We make a point to set the table and share in community meals nearly every night. Do they take longer, are they messier than cooking alone—yes absolutely! But the community, conversation, and relationship that takes place around a table full of food is truly irreplaceable. There have been tears, prayers, laughter, stories, and simply a lot of life shared every meal.
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Praying continually and asking the Lord for direction regularly.
Through the World Race, I have seen and experienced what it looks like to invite the Lord into all aspects of life. He wants us to ask and to seek and this is something we do daily almost continually throughout the day as we make decisions and plans. I feel like I did a good job of asking for direction on the big choices of life, but now I’m learning more and more what it looks like to surrender and move in relationship with the Lord in the little things as well. Where to live, which produce stand to build relationship at, which church to pour into, and what does he or she need are only a few of the things we seek direction in regularly.
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Quality conversations about Christ daily.
Sharing daily life with believers is a gift and so much a part of Christ’s design. Each day getting to experience life and ministry and talk about it with my team has been shaping my relationship with the Lord. The Christian life was never meant to be lived in isolation. Community is refining, fun, and naturally leads to worshipping the Father as we share in what He has done and how we have experienced Him. It’s powerful and such a sweet norm of the Race!
I would totally encourage you to ponder the norms of your life. There is power in reflecting on the things that we regularly encounter and pour into.
Thanks so much for sharing in this journey with me! I would love prayers over my team as we just arrived in Georgia. We are going to be working with a host and would love prayers over his ministry and the local church here. I would love prayer for my last bit of fundraising as well. I’m only about $3,000 away from being fully funded!!
Blessings,
Bre
