I though I finished writing blogs, but as I began to go through the process of re-entry into America, I decided I would write one final blog to tell everyone I’m home safely and wrap up the past year. I didn’t write any blogs for the time I spent in Europe for a myriad of reasons.
Part of it had to do with the fact that my computer didn’t work; I liked having the excuse, and part of it was to avoid going through the hard stuff and putting it out there in the internet.
I’m actually writing this in two parts because after I wrote it, I decided it was too long for a single post. So, this first part is a brief summary of my last 4 months on the race since I didn’t write a single piece about Europe.
The second part will be my final thoughts before officially closing this season of life. If you want more details or have questions about anything, always feel free to comment or email me because there is no possible way to fit every detail into a single post.
(Month 8-11 Summary)
After Malawi, M Squad traveled to Ukraine. My team was in the small city of Uzhgorod, which was only 45 minutes north of the Ukraine/Hungary boarder. Our host was Clinton, World Race alumni, and easily my favorite host.
On top of having a heart for the people and ministry, he blessed my team infinitely by making us homemade fried chicken, providing comfy blankets when it was cold, taking us to a wine and cheese festival, and so much more. He created a safe and comfortable place for us to live and rest.
As our host, Clinton connected us with various types of ministry including visits to special needs hospitals, children homes, and abandoned baby hospitals. It was a relatively loose and fluid month, but it was also relational, and he gave us the freedom to get coffee with people or have them over for dinner.
On top of all of that, we helped Clinton host a short-term college team. We helped with breakfast, training, worship and game nights as well as facilitating a volleyball tournament. Through the events, we were able to connect with the other team, native Ukrainians and Indian medical students.
While my team and I thrived in ministry, we struggled with community, communication, and connection. We were all going in different directions and didn’t focus on each other, as we needed to. Daily feedback didn’t happen, and by the end of the month, I think we were all drained from our lack of contact with each other.
But, that God redeemed us the next month when we were in Romania. Geographically, Romania and Ukraine are close to each other, but culturally they are noticeably different. Because of this, and our assigned ministry, my team and I had ample time for connection, and the canyon between us dissipated.
Because of the way Romania treats women, especially in the small villages, the things we as an all-girls team could do were limited. My team and I took turns making breakfast for our host, sang for a few church services, performed a skit for the youth, and visited a local orphanage.
I absolutely loved visiting the orphanage, and I think every singe teammate of mine found a couple of kids that we were able to spend a lot of time with. For me, it was six-year-old Nikko. He was my buddy. We sang into sticks pretending they were microphones, played basketball and took silly pictures of everyone.
One of my favorite memories from my month in Romania is the weekend my team and I spent with an American family. They invited us over for an All-American experience because they, as well as us, didn’t have too many opportunities to do “American” things while abroad. We ate tacos, played games, and went bowling together. We also were able to make decorations for an upcoming VBS.
Next, we headed to Albania. Our main ministries included pouring into our hosts, kids evangelism, and preparing for VBS. We built a castle in the sanctuary, painted our faces like bunnies and pirates, drank a lot of coffee with our hosts, sang silly songs, and played with loads of kids.
We lived in the pastor’s apartment 15 minutes away from Kosice’s city center. I also became friends with one of the local girls and was able to have her over to our apartment for coffee.
The language barrier was a struggle, and we often resorted to miming and simple words to get our thoughts across, but it didn’t stop us from making friends and becoming part of the community for the short bit we were there.
The hardest part of the month was dealing with the men treated women. We expected catcalls and inappropriate behavior in other countries but not Albania. From having our neighbor run off a batch of young boys after they spent close to an hour knocking and trying to open our door to being told not to look in the direction of men as we walked in the streets, we constantly had to turn away from it all.
I think we were all ready when it came time for the final month in Spain. We were all excited to be with the entire squad again (that’s all 34 people)! We were also curious how it would all work because we didn’t even have a place to live until just a few days before landing in Barcelona.
Fortunately, our incredible logistic leaders, with the help of some other individuals from the squad found a 300-year-old villa for us to stay in for the first 10 days. The catch? The cost of dropped our food budget down to only $2/day per person. But, we made it work! Everyone pitched in and we had family style meals every day.
Our last month could easily be considered an ATL month. ATL stands for “Ask the Lord”. Some people also use the term “treasure hunt.” Basically, that means that each individual asked God what he wanted to have happen.
Some people created sports ministry by setting up sand volleyball at the beach, some people handed out sandwiches to the homeless, and others served the squad through prayer, cleaning, making meals, etc. Personally, I interceded and handed out sandwiches.
M squad will forever be a keeper of beautiful stories because of what happened while we were in that villa.
On top of an ATL month, we participated a 3-day workshop where we were able to listen and learn from Tom Davis, as successful positivity coach. He lives in Barcelona with his family and is creator of a leadership program that companies such as Chik-fil-a spend thousands to have.
From creating a tangible vision and grasp on our values, to learning practical ways of making our visions come to fruition, M squad soaked it all up and then used what we learned in the final 10 days of the race.
Our final segment ended with a journey within the journey. We had the incredible opportunity to walk the Camino de Santiago. It blew all expectations out of the water.
In a simple summary, M Squad truly became the church. A community of beings who knew they were loved, and in return where blazing fires in the dark and apprehensive corners of others’ humanity.
M Squad is a conglomeration of weird, different, and by most of the world’s perception, people who shouldn’t be friends, but are. And, the love didn’t stop within our walls. People knew who we were as we walked.
Strangers became our friends.
The atheist, the mom in recovery, and the student. The Italians, French and Spanish. All individuals we came to know and love as the days continued to unfold. We love them not because of their societal given label, but because of their raw humanity—the beauty that exists within their soul.
And then it was over.
Not the friendship, but the experience as we traveled to the south east side of the country for final debrief before blinking our eyes and stepping on American soil—the soil of our homeland.
And, home is good. It’s hard. And, I didn’t think re-entry would take effort, but it does.
And it is lovely.
