Hello everyone!
Hope y’all had an amazing holiday and have had a good start to 2015. The past four months have been crazy good, hard, frustrating, funny, and adventurous all in one. The things I’ve learned have already and continue to change my life. This blog is going to be kind of a bunch of random thoughts and things all in one.
When people think of the race many things come to mind. All of those things though can normally be put into two categories of positive or negative. People who are for it over look most negatives and say they don’t care and people who think the race isn’t for them dwell on the downfalls. The things most think they will struggle with haven’t even exactly ended up being remotely hard.
When I signed up for the race and dreamt of my time on the field I imagined the hardships being bucket showers, tent living, fire cooking, no heat or air conditioning, hand washing my clothes and dished and ect. Now that I’m on the field though I realize that one half of those things aren’t common and two they aren’t as bad as you think. You don’t live out of your tent as much as you think you would. Both in the Philippines and now Swaziland I’ve had hot water. I haven’t had to hand wash my clothes. I’ve never been overly hot or overly cold and not been able to find a fan or get warmer. The list could go on of things that aren’t what you thought they’d be. Some stuff though like hand washing dishes, community living, and never being fully clean are very real on the field. Back home in Illinois those things and some others made the race seem almost impossible but now that I’m on the field I laugh about that.
The race is hard but in different ways. I never realized how much you say goodbye in the missionary world. You meet these people from all over the world and pour into them and do life with them for some odd amount of time and then you have to say goodbye. Most times you’re saying goodbye knowing you’ll never see them again. The last place I stayed was at an orphanage in El Shaddai and we were all given buddies that we were asked to hang out with and get to know better. It was awesome and amazing to get to know them but also getting to know and love them broke my heart even more. Hearing their stories of abuse and abandonment makes me angry and makes it even harder to say goodbye when all they’ve ever known is goodbye. Seeing poverty and brokenness all over the world and not being able to do anything about it but give it to God will forever be hard for me. Hearing that the king of Swaziland picks thousands of virgins to dance around him every year topless angers me beyond belief. Knowing that I literally can’t do anything about it right now makes it hard to hear more. Knowing that a super typhoon went through basically the exact area that was destroyed last year by one makes it hard to go places and help when it might just be destroyed. Knowing that I was there just a few days before it hit and for some reason God allowed me to be safely away from it all but not the hundreds of thousands of people who have already dealt with it not safely away makes it hard to have strong faith.
So the race is difficult but not in the ways you think it’ll be. Maybe it’s because while on the race your heart changes so what’s hard changes as well. Or maybe because you’re living in it and around it instead of hearing it. Whatever the reason is talk to any past racer and they’ll probably say the same…holding a child that hasn’t been cleaned in weeks makes my ice shower seem like heaven. Or living in a tent is like a palace after walking through a slum.
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Some other random things I’ve learned:
I’ve learned to show grace when all you want to do is karate chop the person. That nothing I have is mine but instead Gods. That I could have amazing plans and ideas for my journey but God’s plans and ideas will blow my mind if I just decide to listen to and follow them. That I’m blessed beyond measures for reasons that I’ll never fully understand. That looking at the world through God’s eyes beats looking at it through my own any day. That you choose to love or hate and you choose positive or negative.
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One of my squadmates once said “I think living a life not content is the best way to live your life.” At first I thought it didn’t make sense so I just shook my head but the more I thought about it the more it rang true. At first I was like well I’m content with wherever God brings me and how could you not be. But the I realized that God will never give you a life where you’re content. God’s life will be full of adventure, hard times, good times, and of course God but never contentment. If you’re content you’re doing something wrong.
Until my next post…
Love and blessings,
Court
