I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that God used the first week of this adventure to jump right into all of the heavy core decisions that will define my Race. Will I choose joy this year? Will I rely on the Spirit to flow through me with love and patience when I have none left inside of me? Will I choose to seek alone time with Him, even when nothing around me ever slows down?
Need an example? Let’s break this one down. Friday morning half of my A squad left the church where we stayed for Launch at 3:45 am to start their journey towards Romania. The rest of us stayed behind until 10 am, then got on a bus that took us to a train that took us to a hostel/homeless shelter in Atlanta. We stayed at SafeHouse for the night, then woke up at 4:40 am on Saturday to walk to the train to the ATL airport. After checking 26 backpacks, all on the very brink of the 50 pound limit, we flew to JFK airport on the eve of the 9-11 10 year anniversary. We spent an 11 hour layover not going into the city because of crazy security and carefully avoiding eye contact with the massive armed guards wandering around our terminal. Our flight left at 11 pm and we flew overnight to land in Warsaw, Poland, at 1 pm local time. Another 9 hour layover gave us enough time to wander around Warsaw for part of the afternoon, then come back to get on the world’s smallest plane to Bucharest, Romania. We landed at 1 am local time, only to be bombarded by X Squad in arrivals. They were leaving Romania to go to India for their third month of the Race and they were so excited to talk and tell us about our ministry placements, which meant no sleep for most of us. It was really great meeting another squad on the field, though — talk about an instant connection! I crashed on the airport floor for about an hour, sharing my sleeping liner with my teammate Kelsey, and then got up a little bit after 6 to figure out bus tickets to take us to the train station to bring us to Draganesti-Olt around 12 noon on Monday, local time.
Are you tired? Because I am. I’m also dirty and sore and I’ve been wearing the same clothes for four days straight. These environments easily bring out the worst in people — but not if you choose joy. And not if you choose love and choose to prefer others above yourself.
Have I done this perfectly in our 1000 hour travel experience? No way. But God is dunking me in grace and awareness, beginning the breaking process that must accompany community right at Day 1. And when you focus on the bigger picture, suddenly the bulky, double-wide carry-on and vertigo and overpriced airport food and overly-tired travel companions don’t seem so bad…the environment turns into the perfect place to live out something that you’ve talked about for years. After all, faith without works is dead. Asking for the Fruits of the Spirit, only to the throw them away at the first opportunity, is pointless.
That being said, to be in a sweet little ministry house in this crazy Eastern European village with Team RADIANT is worth pretty much any travel experience. We are safe, our luggage is with us, we have LUXURY accommodations for the month (think bunkbeds and WiFi — living the World Race high life!), and we’re all a little bit closer on the even longer journey of growing into who God created us to be. Not a bad use of 98 travel hours, if you ask me.
Next up: Tour Draganesti-Olt with me!!
