How was it?
This 11 month trip to 11 different countries sure isn’t easy to summarize in a sentence or two.
It was incredible and hard and incredibly hard and so so worth it.
God did neat things. I can easily hang out on the surface level of it all.
If you want more, if you want to show the ways you really care (like I know deep down you do) feel free to dig a little deeper. Ask more specific questions.
Specific questions! Easy enough. Except how could you possible know the specifics?
To give you a jumping off point if you want, here are some things you can ask me about.
Feel free to reach out over text, email, FB messenger, whatsapp, Instagram, snail mail (‘cause you know that’s my fav) or in person!
I have been gone and I miss you, all of you. I have full intentions to reach out to everyone and reconnect but please give me grace as I try to navigate the reverse culture shock and moving back to my hometown for the first time in 5 years and prepping for student teaching and classes in the Fall.
Know fully and completely that I love you and want to hang out, so if I don’t reach out… reach out to me!
also no shame for skimming this. it’s a lot of questions.
General
- How did I decide to go on the Race instead of interning with CRU for a year in Ecuador or other options before me at the time? ?
- How did I decide to still go on the Race after my dad had a major stroke in October?
- Why did I pick the route (the set of 11 countries) I did?
- Why am I SO glad I packed a glasses case, my pillow and this little black Bible?
I traveled with a Squad of 29 people and was broken into teams (that changed 3 times) Ask me about those people, about my there teams (Shalom Sisters (all girl), BoB (co-ed) & Primrose: Guinea Pigs (all girl). - How was the culture of my squad different from my community with CRU, my christian ministry for all four years of college.
- Who were my closest friends on the squad?
- Ask me about the video work I did fro ministries and churches, all the teaching opportunities I had (even a few job offers?) and the ways I used my Spanish to serve others.
- How’d I grow?
- What’d I learn about the Lord and myself?
- Would I do it again?
- Do I recommend the Race?
- Ask me about the 37 books I read on the Race? How/Why/Favorites
- What were the roles I had within my squad like (Worship Coordinator, Treasurer, “Spanish”)
- What is it like getting locked out in 6 different countries? (Lots of fence climbing and even used a ladder once to get to my bedroom window
Europe
Ask me about any ministry that intrigues you!
Ukraine: Summer camp for kids and then teens, preaching on Sundays and Family Days in the Park where I taught English in Ukraine,
Romania: Evangelism, preaching, teaching English to adults, video work, manual labor, passing out New Testaments, carrying chopped wood for widows
Bulgaria: Teaching English at a school for missionary kids and discipling an adult Bulgarian women (and some work with a baby orphanage, a children’s orphan and a home for people with special needs)
- What was it like living with three Ukrainian male teenagers in a house right next to the church? How’d they come to be our “Brother roommates”?
- How close did I get to memorizing John 3:16 in Ukrainian?
- How many times was marriage a conversation or suggestion? (Or ask about the time my teammate got proposed to in a semi-legitimate way)
- What was it like being a camp counselor in Ukraine vs. in the United States?
- What materials did I use to teach English?
- Favorite night at the camp for teenagers with the hike, the stars & the bonfire?
- What was it like going back to Aushwitz and Krakow, Poland for the second time in under a year?
- Did I get to meet up with any of my friends from Camp Copneconic in Poland or Ukraine?
- The least favorite time I lost what are the odds?
- Ask about my friends, Dana, Oles, Luminier?
- Ask about our host, who adopted us into his family
- Ask about the flowers and what the Lord taught me through them.
- What was it like living with 28 other people in one house in Romania?
- Where did I sleep?
- How did we all eat together?
- What did working out look like?
- ?Ask about the time I went over to my friend’s house (whose from Germany and an in-home tutor for some missionary kids) and was treated to a full German dinner and everyone at the table was only speaking in German.
- What was it like to travel to a city every week and do evangelism and teaching English there?
- Oh please ask about the hot dogs in the bread from that city and the surprise s’mores?
- Definitely do I have a story about the sketchiest bunkbed I have ever slept in.
- What was the zoo like? (lol at the fact raccoons were a bizarre and foreign animal and the ostrich was mislabeled as an emu)?
- Ask about what making videos was like for Raul and Hope Church?
- What was Raul’s nickname for me?
- Ask about my most favorite moments: when an elderly women decided to follow Jesus and then came with us to tell her neighbors and when an entire family decided to follow Jesus in a church basement
- What were car rides with Hunter (a squadmate) and Raul were like?
- Ask about our weekend adventure to Greece, the time I thought I was going to die and jumping off cliffs into the Mediterranean?
- Ask about my friends, Ellie & Emmanual & Larissa
- Ask about what I learned about sorrow and joy
- What was it like to live in Roma neighborhood?
- Ask me about the public transportation (and how much I loved it) oh! and the time I got in trouble with the security guards
- How was it being separated from the other 6 women of my team for most of the day everyday?
- Ask about the absolute bizarre way I met the woman I would go on to substitute teacher for
- How did the Lord rebuild my trust in Him this month?
- Ask about the kindness of one of the mom’s at the school I taught at
Halloween! Boy was our costumes dorky & Christian - Ask about the time I spent with Dani (with my teammate Nicole) nearly every night, teaching English, talking about God and making really really good Bulgarian food
- Ask about the LOTR movie night I had with one the teacher’s from my school
Asia
Ask me about any ministry that intrigues you!
Vietnam: No official ministry host. (Ask the Lord) Coming behind what the Lord was telling my teammates led me to tutor English in a coffee shop, teach Zumba and make videos for each of my teammates. Also helped with a Christmas play with a local church as the assistant hair specialist and babysat some Australian kiddos. ?Cambodia: Security for an AIM base hostel and teaching English and leading Bible studies in a far away (1 hour by tuk tuk) village
Thailand: Co-taught with a Thai teacher senior level English
Myanmar: At the buddhist meditation center, helping cook dinner for everyone, bathing the elderly women, collecting Alms. At the Seminary, teaching English, making friendship bracelets, preaching in the morning and evening?
- Ask about ice skating in the mall
- What was my favorite food I had all the time?
- Ask about the cool overnight buses in this country and how they differed from other buses
- What was the theme park Ba Na Hills like? ?Ask about the fact Vietnam is a “closed country” and how that affected what we could do?
- What was Thanksgiving like?
- Team Changes! Why the name BoB?
- Ask about Christmas in Cambodia! (The circus, the makeshift paper Christmas tree, the night in the hospital with a teammate, Secret Santa)
- Where did my copy of the Hobbit end up and how was that related to the random shirt I picked up?
- Ask me to describe the most ludicrous sounding lizard that would wake up whoever was on security duty at around 1 am during our shift
- Who did I spend my time with on long bus rides?
- What kind of shenanigans did we get into in the back of the bus?
- How did I trust the Lord this month?
- Ask about MANistry Month and what that meant for all the girls on co-ed teams
- What was it like living on a high school campus?
- Ask me about the beautiful view from our living room over the lake behind our house
- What did cooking look like this month?
- Ask me about Teacher Appreciation Event, Genna’s friend from running on the track and the free banana and making a music video the “Baby” by Justin Bieber
- One of my favorite songs that my teammate introduced me to?
- Ask about the list of 1000 things we’re thankful for
- Chilly morning assemblies, teaching in a Thai school and free fruit parfaits from the janitor
- Ask me about Sticky Falls, the coolest waterfall that my friends and I walked up.
- Ask about the absolute bizarre story about how we ended up at ThaBarWa Buddhist Meditation Center for a week?
- Ask me about the time I went to the library instead of helping cook dinner and it was exactly where God wanted me
- Friends I met from France, New York, Israel and Germany?
- Ask about BoB day
- What was it like living in Chinatown for a few days (lol you’ll never guess where the cheapest hostel was in the city) during a major festival?
- Ask about the real bad sinus infection I got, how much it cost to get all the meds for it
- What was unique about the way men dressed in this culture?
- Ask about the puppies! so cute. so tiny.
Lol at the 80 hour travel “day” from Myanmar to Colombia. 6 flights. a layover in San Francisco. (so much culture shock and I went to a used bookstore and Target and Morgan grabbed me In and Out) may have gotten into a little trouble with Chinese police. Missing our last flight.
South America
Ask me about any ministry that intrigues you!
Colombia: Worked with an Assemblies of God Church. Evangelism among youth, home visits and preaching. We did a skit, helped host a youth event and I translated a. lot. (a lot, a lot) Tutored one of the pastor’s sons in English
Ecuador: Welding at Dunamis, a home for women rescued from trafficking and time with Gap Year. Skits and preaching with a church in Baños. Youth retreat up a mountain in a cabin. Evangelism on university campuses with CRU in Quito.
Peru: Baby Orphanage. (lots of poopy cloth diapers) Video work with host.
Bolivia: Evangelism with CRU in two different cities, with high schoolers and college students.
- Ask me about all the times I confused words while translating.
- How did translating a sermon on stage from English to Spanish go?
- Ask me about the time I got a minor fracture in my ankle
- I bet I can still give my friends’ testimonies in Spanish if you want a cool party trick
- Ask me about my friend Cristian (and Crabs & Wafles)
- How did my team come to my aid and help set healthy boundaries with translating?
- What was it like living with the pastors of a church and their four adult sons?
- Arepas. every. day.
- What would I do when my brain got a little mushy translating so much?
- Ask about the time we went to a Fincha, climbed a big tall rock or ducked under electric fences to get to a cool waterfall
- How did we pull of the “Everything Skit” in one afternoon? (There’s def a thrift shop involved)?
- How did my squad work out a way for me to see my host family from when I studied abroad again?
- Ask about how I got a boot for my hurt ankle (such a sweet body of Christ thing)?
- What was Easter in Ecuador like?
- Ask about the time (my fault) Hunter and I accidentally hiked 11.5 miles instead of our intended 8
- Why did we have to fly between Colombia and Ecuador?
- What happened at the worship night with the Parent Vision Trip?
- How’d I break my Chacos?
- How hard was it to master cloth diapers?
- What did we spend hours talking with our hosts about?
- How do I feel generally about working in orphanages?
- Ask about the time I got real sick with maybe the flu?
- What was BoB day round 2 like?
- Tried grits for the first time, you could ask how that all came about?
- Ask about Machu Picchu
- Ask about my new team of 7 other women and how I ended up working with CRU again?
- What was it like preaching entirely in Spanish for the first time?
- Ask about how we creatively shared our testimonies with each other with a game
- How did we manage to find our way to our friends after getting super lost trying to play wallyball?
- Ask about why I loved the Salt Flats so dang much
- How’d it feel to say goodbye to all of this?
If there’s a particular question you’re interested in, don’t wait! Ask me now! Throw it in the comments or message me. I would love love LOVE love to hear from you.
caitlyn louise
