Man oh man where do I even begin, besides the part were I apologize for not saying hello sooner than now. So very sorry. I have very good excuses though. Ready?
I would sit down to write a blog and it was like I have been writing a novel and have writers block all of a sudden. Also, multiple times, I wrote and reread it and erased it because it didn’t sound right. And every time I sat in front of the camera to record, something always went wrong. Seriously. Nothing seemed to be going right. The last time I tried to vlog, BTW Vloging is my face telling you what has been going on and a blog is well… this. (you’re welcome Allison). Everything went wrong from wind blowing the wrong way, people walking in, loud random noises, dogs barking and me making awesome bloopers. I decided it was the devil. So naturally I started the next vlog with reading a scripture in hopes that the devil would flee. Thats’ when a big wind blew threw. Maybe it was the Holy Spirit? Still it messed up my hair and I looked bald.
See… told ya!
So, here I am with my awesome grammar and proper punctuation.!?. See what I did there? English is getting to be harder the longer I’m over seas. Honestly, in the process of moving from country to country and learning how to say “HI” , “Bye”, “How are you?” and the biggest one of all “SORRY”, you somehow forget how to speak your own language properly. Any World Racer I believe would agree with me, and if you don’t something is wrong with you because the problem (on the world race) is that its never you doing anything wrong. Can I get an amen?! No, but for real y’all I have learned so much in this past month and a lot has changed so let me tell ya about it in a number format. It seems to be the only way I can give it to ya straight.
1. We all switched teams… again. There are 6 of us now. 3 boys, 3 girls. So it was the first month of us all being together. The Lord worked on all of our patience and tested our love for one another. Oh, and I became team leader. That could be #2.
(the ones on the right our friends, Family on the left)
2. I became team leader. Yeah. I don’t really know exactly what that means. Right now it means taking on a huge load of everything I shouldn’t and thinking that everything that goes wrong is my fault and then trying to fix everything. Totally not the right idea of team leader I know, I know I am learning y’all.
3. In Batumi, NO ONE SPEAKS ENGLISH! It has been so hard to communicate but so humorous as well. God totally made our two hands specifically for sharing the gospel and communicating with someone who doesn’t speak your language. If you think they were made for something else, you’ve been wrong your entire life. Sorry and you’re welcome.
4. I have lost the concept of water conservation. The pipe in our apartment sink broke about 2 weeks ago. It doesn’t leak, it POURS water out. It only took a night of doctoring it every 30 minutes or so to find the water shut off. Mainly so we didn’t create another flood to doubt the concept of the rainbow and God’s promise of the world never flooding it again. Gotta do what you gotta do.
5. With the water being turned off to prevent Noah’s flood occurring every time you turn on the water to take a shower this indeed brought some awesome communication and team building with in our team. 
That’s a wink by the way. We will look back and thank God he brought us through.
6. We live by the Black Sea with a ship port right outside our window. Mountains for the backdrop ( that was just a fun fact).
7. God knew I missed Bella (my dog), that is the main reason we are half way through the race now and find myself here in Batumi. Why? Because there are “stray” dogs everywhere! We were “dealing” with cats (Honestly trying not to kill them) and now we are loving on dogs. It is the best! I say “stray” because here they get spayed, neutered and have all their shots then get released back on the street. The word ‘Pound’ doesn’t exist here and it is AWESOME! I named a dog Asia. Why? Cause we are in Asia y’all duh!?
8. Let’s see, when we first arrived I saw at least 5 “Thai Massage” parlors within 2 blocks. My awesome detective skills broke out. Come to find out, they most certainly aren’t massage parlors. You will only find men going in and out. I marched myself right into many of the parlors and asked for a massage. The look on their faces were priceless and then I sat down and talked with them. I found two of the parlors I connected with and it has been one of my favorite parts about being here. Two Dena’s, Ann, Lena and Kitty. They are from Thailand and are SOOOOOO precious.
9. … Still eating shawarma BUT I have added a little something something called Khachapuri. Still drinking coffee that comes in a little cup. (Ba-bum) You’ll find sludge at the bottom. Can someone say “Teeth Whitener?!”. #Boojie
10. I met a guy named Christian at my favorite Coffee shop. He set his self up for that one. “Christian eh?! You know Jesus?”
11.My favorite coffee shop you ask?! “Chocolatte”. When coming to Batumi (because I know at least half of you will want to come here after this blog) you HAVE to visit them. They are a CUTE young Ukraine couple. We have been going in and feeding them the gospel and showing love.
12. We thought we made friends with the Librarian next door to Chocolate until one day we went in and only used the bathroom and didn’t buy anything except a small ruler. The next thing you know we are getting yelled at in Russian. Scary. We haven’t been back since.
13. You know the times when you are down and then the devil just continues to kick you down? Yeah, that happened one night after a TERRIBLE day. I went to the local Carrefour for groceries. We always take a taxi on the way home but it has been 10 lari . Naturally, I started bartering for cheaper. Got it to 5 Lari. That’s 2 dollar difference guys. We poor but we ain’t that poor. So, I have no idea why I did that? I was so proud though. However, when we got out of the taxi at our apartment, I left the team wallet in the taxi. I am not kidding. All our money and credit cards were in it. 2 dollars had nothing on that. When I noticed it, I took off running down stairs as if I was going to catch him. I grabbed another taxi and drove back to the Carrfour. Thank God I caused a big commotion before we left negotiations the 5 lari that they remembered me and knew who the lucky driver was that got to take us Americans home for 5 lari. Long story short. Old man taxi driver knew him. Drove me to thief taxi driver. Almost called the cops on him because the wallet wasn’t there. (he stole it I believe). Caused a riot, with what felt like ALL the taxi drivers in the city. Because honesty is really the best policy here in Batumi. An English Georgian was called that “knew” English who was translating for about 12 men for me over the phone. Moral of the story. Don’t talk down a taxi cap driver for 5 Lari. And certainly don’t go chasing down the taxi driver that stole your money it will cost you 20 Lari on top of the money you already lost.
14. I got hit by a car. Thank God it was going 2MPH and I was holding onto teammate or else my legs for sure would have been taken out
15. OH MY WORD! I went skiing on the World Race! Holy Cow! We also found 80’s onesies for $8. I am never letting it go. It was EPIC. With that being said here are some hyphenated points:
- Google map said it would only take 2 hours… it turned into 5 hours. I failed to calculate the driver stopping to take shots of ChaCha, all the smoke breaks. Pair that along with the one way icy/muddy/snowy “roads” you have 5 hours folks! #teamleaderfail
- I told two people on my team I could teach them how to ski. One fell and broke his knee within 5 minutes . The other took some AMAZING falls and then I ended up tying a scarf around her for the remainder of the way down the mountain. Did I mention I am a professional skier from Texas? That makes sense right?!
- It snowed the entire time we were there and it was the prettiest place I have ever seen. God’s creation is breathe taking.
- It was CHEAP and so nice
Selfie with our onuses… best pic we have. Sad day
Beautiful view from gondola going up the mountain.
And this y’all was the road we drove on for 2 hours on the side of a mountain!
16. God has pushed me to another level with intimacy, faithfulness, discipline and challenged me sooooo much this month. He has shown me many more “Spreeching” passages. I have seen him come through on many things he has promised me. I am learning how to confront and speak to people where they are with wisdom.
17. What does our days look like here in Batumi? Great question. Prayer in the mornings together as a team, street evangelism, english classes, pre-k, kids church, Sunday school and speaking at a new church plant on Sundays. Woah.
18. LAST ONE, I have been using our team phone to communicate with people here. I just have to say to my mom and dad. Thank you for allowing me to be on the highest phone plan with text messaging when I was younger. 500 text messages a month and you best believe I made every single text count. Can I get a witness?! Therefore, I have not forgotten how to use T9abc. It’s like muscle memory. Oh and shout out to World Race for the awesome phones! No sarcasm, It has been a charm being able to put a phone in my purse without forcing it.
I love you all. I promise the next one won’t take as long to post… hopefully. I will be heading to Armenia in about a week. Please be praying for safe travel for us and the team that is headed to Egypt.
Here are some other random Picture. Mostly with our amazing host’s. What a fun month!
GAME NIGHT! With some missionaries and Georgina’s
These people right here stole my heart. A beautiful family we had the privilege to meet.
