My team has had one wild month. We live together in a small little apartment in a youth center. We cook together and being on our own has been an adventure and bonding experience. It’s taken us a while to get the hang of it.
We sleep in one tiny little room with 6 mattresses for each of us, with our giant backpacks piled in the hallway. We attempt to cook meals for ourselves which resulted in my team mates Courtney and Keia nearly burning the place down. They were cooking green beans and somehow the entire pan blew up in flames. We all escaped and thankfully there was no damage, except to the green beans. Our door literally just fell off one day, and so now we no longer have one. But at least we don’t have to be worried about being locked out.
We did our laundry but it’s monsoon season here in Africa, so when we hung up our clothes to dry they were soon found in the mud and were soaked for another week. We also all got sick with the stomach flu, and we were all throwing up together. Team bonding, am I right? We just sat in our tiny little room eating crackers and drinking sprite together. We weren’t even that upset about being sick because we all got to be sick together. One of my team mates, Emma, had to go to the hospital because she got really sick. So we all spent the night in the hospital with her and slept in the lobby on the couches. Emma recovered, and when we returned back to the youth center we are staying at this month, we realized we were locked out, and our ministry hosts didn’t have the right key. So we sat outside the gate for a couple hours and I had to eventually climb through the window to figure out a way in.
But it’s things like this that make me love my team even more. We find ways to laugh about everything, and when things are frustrating and difficult it only makes us closer. When we struggle we struggle together. No one is ever alone. My team mates have seen me at my best and they have seen me at my worst. They know what makes me happy, and they know what I struggle with. There’s literally nothing I can hide from them because they know everything. We are all incredibly different from each other but we somehow make it work. I love how different we are, we’re incredibly unique.
I can’t express how much I love the 5 girls I got put with for this journey. They are my sisters in Christ and I couldn’t do this without them. We have been through so much together and we have grown so much together. I’ve loved every beautifully chaotic moment, and I’m ready for more.
