I’m sitting in a hostel in Bucharest, Romania. My squad-peeps are currently traveling here. There’s a lull right now. Music plays in the background. A girl across the room skypes in a foreign language. Neither one is louder than the thoughts rolling around in my head.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it continues to impress me in the still and quiet moments of life. How did I get here? How did the intentional and seemingly unimportant decisions of my life land me here?
It’s now the end of month one of my second time out with the World Race. There were so many things that happened this month that were small in nature, but points of joy/happiness/celebration for me. So why not share them with you here:
- When we didn’t have a soccer ball and instead used an empty water bottle just so we could play a game of soccer with the kids.
- The morning I got up really early so I could help feed baby goats.
- Learning to play Volare on the guitar by a famous Albanian singer.
- My team and I wrote a message on paper, put it in a jar, and threw it into the Adriatic Sea.
- I spent time in Tirana, Vlore, Durres, Lezhe, Shkoder (just one day), Albania and Skopje, Macedonia. (I stayed any where from 2 nights to max 6 nights in each location.)
- Ivi Peach and Exotic Fanta are my two favorite drinks in Albania.
- I was welcomed into homes, communities, and personal lives of fellow Believers every where I went.
- When it’s so hot outside, doing yoga late at night under the stars was a good way to escape the heat and love my life just a little bit more.
- I learned that Spittal (a church in Durres) and spital (hosptial) have two distinct pronunciations, even if I can’t tell the difference myself.
- Cherries are in season. For the first time, I ate one that wasn’t on top of a ice cream sundae.
- Despite our concerns, they did in fact show the Minion movie in English in Macedonia. Side Note: It didn’t make a difference; it was all still jibberish.
- This one time my teammates took turns trying to get a ping pong ball into a teacup. It was a lot of fun to watch and was considered a team building exercise.
- Doing Insanity Work Out in the middle of the day in Macedonia when it’s over 100 degrees is really hot.
- The time my Best Friend danced around like a crazy person just to make me smile.
- When my teammates brought me a chocolate bar.
I never want to forget to stop and find joy in the smallest things. This program can have its intense moments, but it’s a shame to go through it and forget that even in the little things a big god is still very real and present. He sends us smiles everyday.
Maybe that’s what stopping to smell the roses is all about…for that moment in time, all He wants is to see His favorite person simply smile.
