This month it feels like we are just living at home in this apartment. We have 2 teams so 12 people living here this month. So we have 4 futons in the living room. In the mornings I get up, have a cup of coffee and sit and read with 5-6 others. We have a nice bookshelf full of books. I am already on my second book! I’m not much of a reader but “ Blue like Jazz” and “Not a Fan” are both great books! This month has been a nice transition between the race and the states, because it feels like home would. It also is preparing us because when we get home we won’t have ministry scheduled. I will have to find it and pursue it. Looking for the conversation with a friend or a stranger. Asking God each day “what do you have for me?” If we truly ask this each day and do what we hear, wow things will get crazy!
We have discussed many times through out the months of when we get back to “real life” and how the race is not normal life. But the fact is everything on the race is normal, just not the normal we are used to. It is normal to walk to the well for water in Moldova. It is normal to throw your trash on the ground and eat with your hands in India. It is normal to see chickens under the banana trees in Swaziland. It is normal to walk down the street with iced coffee in a bag swinging from your hand in Malaysia. Even though my norm before the race is nowhere near what I currently see as normal doesn’t mean that we are not in real life. Real life is life. The circumstances we live in and the dependency on variables may be different but the reliance on God is the same.
So if the World Race is truly normal, then what we experience and do should be the same at home. So what is a mission trip? Is it seeing a different norm? Because everything we have done on this trip can be done wherever we are going back to. We can pray with people, encourage and help others. We can feed those that are hungry. We can witness and do life with those with troubled pasts. So I guess if you want to experience the World Race, do something different and change your norm. Do something you have never done before. Put your self in a situation or culture you have never experienced. Go to the other end of town away from where you live. See the people, meet the people, talk and do life with them. See their norm. Love them! The culture might not be completely different and that’s okay. It makes things a little bit easier. But the same basic things are the same. We all have troubles and we all need God.
