So I have no officially entered Month 3 of the World Race and life is……not nearly as strange as I thought it would be.
I think there was such a build up to the race that by the time I actually got here, there was no way anything could have been as bad what I had in mind. I do indeed sleep on sleeping pad, which mine slightly resembles a pool float (thank you big bertha), but I sleep well. I wake up each day and eat breakfast and still put my pants on one leg at a time (as any good coach would of course be able to tell you).
I have discovered that living with 6 other people is NOT EASY, but it is indeed GOOD! I can not say exactly for obvious reasons, but I feel like this year will be a crash course in marriage. Shoving 7 people together, sending them around the world, and hoping they become best friends is like some big sociology/psychology experiment that I’m in on and simply have no idea. If it were not for Jesus, I’m really not sure this ship would float. But as is, it is a wonderful, frustrating, and unique experience.
One of the bigger suprises is how much I have missed College Football. Just goes to show you how you don’t really appreciate something until you don’t have it anymore. I think I have found a way to watch the A&M vs. Arkansas game this Saturday which is actually 2:30 here on Sunday morning, but think it will be Totally worth it. My squad has also started a fantasy football league which you will be happy to know I am in dead last. It only furthers my opinion that fantasy football is a waste of time. If i were winning, or even had won a game to date, I might have a differenet opinion, but no sense in getting caught up in the If’s.
I have also started to notice what foods I really miss. I will only list them as to keep myself from dwelling on them: Steak, Shrimp, HAMBURGERS, pickles, Wing-Stop Lemon pepper wings, and especially Sweet Tea!!! Weird list I know.
On a more serious note I have had some time to do some good thinking. I have thought on the man I want to be someday. I have thought on what I want my future to look like. I am still planning on attending law school at UT, and still feel very good about this, though I have noticed that I will begin to try and define myself by the things I do rather than by Christ if I don’t keep my head on straight. I know that I want to be a gracious man, a gentle man, yet convicted of truth and willing to fight for what I know.
I have thought on marriage, mainly due to the fact that there is a married couple on my team, and what it means to be a good husband and/or father, if one or both are in my future. I know that I am not ready for either right now, but have begun to ask myself what will it look like when I’m ready. I don’t entirely have an answer but am beginning to get a picture I think.
Lastly I have been thinking on what is my role in the church and in his kingdom to look like during the course of my life. Again, a really big question and am only even begining I think to ask and pray on the right questions. I do know that I want to stand firm in the knowledge that I will always first and foremost be a child of God before I am anything else. I hope to never fade or forget this fact. One of the wisest thing I have ever heard my father say, though I don’t know if he said it first is that ” People rarely run from God, but too often they simply fade from him.” I pray this is never me, that I am so focuses on what he has set before me I cannot and will not ever “fade” from Christ.
Would love to hear updates from back home, they help keep me grounded and I do hope everyone at home is well. Will post an update on Montenegro soon, but you should know am sitting in a bar right now because it is the best internet around and they are blaring YMCA. All around people are doing the hand motions, I wonder if the village people knew the gaps they would bridge with their song. god bless.
