It’s an interesting thing on the Race that the times when I’ve learned the most from the Lord, and the memories I’ve been most fond of, have been those rare, beautiful moments when I’ve been farthest away from ‘ministry’.
I wish you could see it like I do, the vast spectacular panorama of color my life has taken on in the last 10 months. I don’t even know how to put this into words, without sounding pretentious or overly sentimental. I wish you could hear the songs that weave in and out of my memory, bouts of laughter cutting in and out, the rattle of traffic, memories like paint dripping, tears in large rolling drops, tumbling, bursting, firework explosions in reds and deep greens, the blue of the ocean, the silky yellow of the humming of insects, the sunsets all wrapped up into one, the gold of true family, secrets bared, the sobs of shared trials, the distant blue glint of future hopes and dreams as large as the ends of the earth, the weight of 300 new mornings, 10 million starry nights, and thousands of lessons learned, in grace too beautiful to fathom, the end of each new adventure letting itself out with one large milky breath, one wholly satisfied breath, churning day into night like mist, 300 times over now and a million more to come, yellows turning to greens turning to reds to blues and deep purples and blacks, and then starting all over again.
Cartwheels outside of Kathmandu, Nepal
It’s hard to explain, as this Race wraps up, how new I feel. That this is what He does, when He makes you His – He makes you come gloriously alive, for the first time and for forever after that. And I look at every day I’ve known Him as one small step in this grand never-ending beautiful adventure; that to separate the Spirit of Adventure from knowing HIM is to not know Him at all.
And I’m so thankful, now, in this last month, for all the adventures He’s given me, and all the rest to come, and I want to share some of them with you, some of my most wonderful non-‘ministry’ adventures, when His voice comes alive in me and I start to see this small glimpse of the inheritance He has for me. Adventure: the greatest ministry of them all.
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Those couple hours before it sets, when the sun casts everything into brilliant shades of gold – everything is beautiful during this time of day. It’s my absolute favorite. And it was during this time now, the sun setting the waving wheat fields on fire, that we made our way home, everything illuminated, to the old gnarly cherry tree at the edge of our camp site, the mountains we came from fading into deeper and deeper shades of green and purple. 20 miles later, 9 beautiful hours, and the foothills of Eastern Slovakia had been ours, every secluded view, every songbird and bristling tree. 5 peaks, countless spectacular Slovak views, and 8 of us just drunk with the beauty of it. There is no better definition of brother, than that man who, with his words and his jokes and the whole power of Jesus Himself, carries his bright naked butt alongside yours, up the mountain and down again.
20 mile hike through the Slovakian foothills
It was that part of night when time ceased to exist, that Skip and I climbed story after story, the blackness of the Vietnam night our secrecy and our excitement. The roof of our hotel butted up next to the concrete frame of one of Da Nang’s newest skyscrapers, and after a little weaseling through pipes and water heaters, we were across the small gap, and through the maze of new concrete and ladders and scaffolding, rocketing up to the top, all of Da Nang new exposed before us in a glittering carpet of blinkers and street lights. And we talked, as we always do, about the Lord and what He’s doing and what He’s teaching us and all the adventures He’d already given us this month, the third world theme parks, zooming through Saigon on the back of mototaxis for miles, stumbling upon a roller rink, the karaoke, the green Saigon and the back alleys and the food stalls and the secret pub with that one random Vietnamese man, “What the hell are you doing here”, the 40 mile bike ride through the rain, and the beach days, the surf rolling in for miles. Just to take all of that in, from such great heights…
Vietnamese theme parks – also, my 399th coaster
Thomas and I were scrambling higher and higher up the cascading rock-face tower of one of Malaysia’s best waterfalls. And each time we would get to what we thought was the top, the view would open up into a whole new array of rock faces and water chutes, and we’d scramble once more into the overwhelming green of the forest. We jumped off small cliffs into basins of crystal clear water, sliding down natural slides, at one point edging up to peak over the lip of one of the pools. And the current was so strong that it sucked me right in towards the never-ending system of tight rock chutes. In one quick stroke, I turned around and yelled to Thomas, a few feet away, who caught me by the Salvation bracelet on my wrist, almost losing balance himself, while I was just caught there immobilized in the current, until he could finally shift the momentum to pull me back.
Malaysian oh-so-many Waterfalls
Our first view of Singapore, Sheri, Samson and I, left us with our mouths open, the sun beginning to set behind the Marina Bay, an impossible labyrinth of life-size interactive architecture, and us just running around like fools. We chased each other through malls and through expensive restaurants, to the steel forest on the other side of the Marina hotel, through the heartline bridge, Universal Singapore’s Transformers Ride, and the night playing out in a magical light and fountain show, bubbles, lasers, the whole thing, like something out of a child’s dream – and us just swept away.
Gypsy dances – India
Zach and I would run for miles to the beach in Australia, golden swaths of pillars and dunes, swept into banks and eddied out by rebel rivers, and us dodging killer jellyfish and threats of crocodiles like we were Indiana Jones, scaling old red rock formations, panting from exertion, sharing some of the deepest parts of our hearts while we ran, past the nudist beaches and the Aboriginal bum spots, resting for a while in the sun-heated pools left on the beach, before making our way home.
We had bikes in Cambodia, as crappy as they were, and we made good use of them. We’d ride out to the beaches and back, exploring hidden hill temples and the farthest parts of town. One day I just set out on a run, through markets and over tree bridges, through the narrowest alleyways, children screaming at me and old men reaching with their laundry on their miniature balconies, just feet from my head. And we would crash through the jungle on those bikes, trading berries for directions when we would lose our way, climbing the last day with Michael to the cliff house Jen and I had found, a month full of great talks and deep secrets under our belts, up the rock stairs through the trees, and down on to this old abandoned house built into the rocks, the jungle opening up into this spectacular view of the sun setting over the beach, and us just able to soak it all in.
Angkor Wat – places we weren't supposd to be
A bunch of us had made our way to Phnom Penh’s river front after an incredible meal outside of the King’s palace, lit up like a Christmas tree after his funeral, picking street kids up by the handfuls as they flocked to us while we walked for nearly 45 minutes, belting out Christmas Carols as we drove back to our hotel late at night, crammed into a tuktuk, welcoming in the holiday season with renewed spirit!
Phnom Penh street kids, Team Insta
The Nile flooding out before us into the ever-rolling East African Hills of Uganda, our raft seconds from plunging over a 15 foot waterfall, Team Naked on board and hooting with delight, a local watching on as we fell, our mascot, perched naked as the night on a rock 20 feet away, the clouds stacked behind in rows.
Rafting the Nile – Team Naked
Michael, Veronica, and Jen and I roving around Kathmandu’s old towns, finding our way to Pashupatina, the holy Hindu cremation site on the river, and us crawling through these adjacent dilapidated buildings, shrines and statues left to nature, crowned with wreathes of weeds, the bricks literally crumbling underneath us as we waded through large piles of old clothing stripped from the dead bodies, old jewelry rattling as we kicked it, and monkeys darting around us through the rafters. We got within 10 feet of the people being cremated, looking up over this crumbling roof ridge and seeing the faces of people burning staring back at us, the smoke rising in thick plumes.
We waded through Hippo Lake in Kenya, a 45 minute walk from our house, following the lead of two Kenyan children, splashing around in knee deep mud, hippo skulls and teeth littering the shoreline, the snorts and roars of hippos just a few hundred feet away. A fisherman took us out on his rickety boat, within 30 feet of the giant beasts, breaching the water with huge yawns, as we just watched in wonder.
Lamu – Kenya's ancient coastal Swahili port slash gorgeous beach
I’ll never forget these cities, as big and as old as time itself, and us just in the midst of them, drowning in them, in love with everything. Mumbai’s vibrancy, it’s life, the trains, the rickshaws, the sun turning the old cobbled streets of downtown a magnificent golden brown, the slums swallowing us in their magnitude, us dwarfed under the Gate, and lunch with people you love, dirty as can be. Roving the streets of Saigon, climbing the spires of unmarked temples, ringing bells and stepping out above one of the craziest cities on earth, serenading the ice cream vendors, and late night conversations at hidden bars and restaurants, lost in Saigon’s ethereal maze. Kathmandu’s age, it’s history, and sneaking onto a roof above the hill top temple, getting lost in conversation for hours with a Siberian Buddhist, the city spilling out below… Nairobi, the East African hub, us plunging down streets and through buildings, the mosque tour, and kissing giraffes – the flash flood and the hail storm.
Sheri at the top of a mosque in Nairobi
Angkor Wat at Christmas time. And Istanbul with Skip, my favorite city on earth, Muslim prayer in the streets around the Grand Bazaar, enjoying the view from the Galata Bridge, the shwarmas and the Turkish Tea, and the buildings in Sultanhamet, standing like giants. Kiev’s miniature coaster park, scattered trampolines, over grown kids rides, and beer stocked fridges, exiting out of the metro into a gilded architectural downtown paradise, staying up all night with family after Easter sock wrestling in Kampala until a tired breakfast at 8 the next day, leaving seamlessly out the campsite gate at 4:50 in the morning in Kosice to get to Europe’s largest castle, gleaming on its hill in our first glimpse, silhouetted with the sun behind it.
Tyler Hunt and I, Spis Castle, Slovakia
Krakow, and all the day trips we’ve made, the sun rising at 4, just us and the city and the drunks still raging, and a couple, lost in the beauty of the morning and the drinks from last night and each others’ arms, ballroom dancing in the main square, the sun poking behind the cathedral spirals, the rhythms of their own laughter issuing the beat their tired feet found. To celebrating the 4th of July on the balcony of a Marriot for free, a castle in the background [our castle], in complete freedom with brothers you love, to the stunning beaches of Lamu on the coast of Kenya, it’s Muslim old town a mind-blowing labyrinth of storm blown concrete and twisted wood.
5 am ballroon, drunk couple in Krakow
And I’m sitting here now, in this old run-down house in the middle of Transylvania, having just hitch-hiked 600 kms from the western edge of Romania with my closest friends and brothers, the Lord directing our every step, our driver treating us lunch, us walking some hour and a half in Brasov to get to a good pick up spot for Targu Mures, this storm front rolling in behind us, black and wide as the whole sky as we ran under an overpass at the last second, the only shelter for miles. The sky opened up above us as we sat huddled under the bridge, tossing rocks as the rain passed, God just sitting there laughing along with us, knowing full well when He built this overpass that one day we’d need it exactly where it was. We rolled into our house at 1 in the morning, the water not working, the doors not fully closing, no furniture, no anything – and us just able to enjoy it for the adventure it is.
To all the birthday dinners, the holidays, the late nights, the deep conversations and the life changing company. To all the times we ran through temples and found ourselves in places without having to pay – to all the food we’ve been given by strangers, and the wonderful people we’ve met, to all the times we’ve had to rely on the Lord for our strength and our joy and our life and He’s pulled through – to all the unexplored cities and the early morning starts, to Tibet, to the sunsets and the hidden bars, the Congolese volcanoes, to Romanian radio, the encouragement I’ve gotten in these times, the lessons I’ve learned from the world, the roofs of busses, the Bungee jumping, the gorgeous views, the baptisms, the East African wildlife, the Russian saunas, the mountains and the oceans and the beaches and the jungles, the train rides and the airports, to all the exotic dishes and weird food stalls, to hitch hiking, to park bench toasts, the inside jokes, poop stories, deepest darkest secrets, eating contests, cake ministries, Holy hookah, the slums, the weeks spent eating nothing but Ramen and bread, to kings without castles, and the homeless, and AIDS victims, and the rotting teeth and the yellow eyes, the beautiful children, the pastors, composers, musicians, writers, leaders, students, designers, prostitutes, builders, drivers, drinkers, cooks, the people who have served us and the people we’ve been fortunate enough to serve, the friends we’ve made, both on this trip, and at the ends of the earth, the old women and the music we’ve danced to, the houses we’ve stayed in, the heights we’ve gone to, the fantastic adventure that each new day presents, and the beautiful Gospel in all its fullness –
Bungee Jumping with Sheri Funk – Jinja, Uganda
Lord, thank you, it has been the most refreshing blessing. Thank you for your grace, your love, your sovereignty, and what you’ve taught us about yourself. This adventure has been perfect. Here’s to one more month, and many years after
Love,
Danny
