Here are 11 things I’ll miss about the World Race when it’s over.
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Slower pace of life – in many of the places we’ve lived this year, relationships are valued over timeliness. It’s common to spend hours sitting and talking with no agenda. Work is a necessary part of life, but it isn’t as important as things like faith and family.
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Walking – at home I would drive to work, church, stores, etc. On the race we walk pretty much everywhere. Sometimes we spend three or more hours every day walking to ministry and back.
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Living minimally – living out of a backpack obviously limits the number of personal belongings we are able to have on the race. And though sometimes I wish I had more options of things to wear, for the most part my eyes have been opened to the freedom of living with less. On the race we are also generally exposed to less media, including news, commercials, and advertisements.
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Fellowship – ministry on the race is often just spending time with people, visiting them in their homes, getting to know them, and sharing encouragement and testimonies. Fellowship is so important to believers around the world; sometimes church lasts all day long.
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Celebrating new holidays and traditions – I spent “Gal”entine’s Day eating chocolate and watching Pearl Harbor, had a city-wide water balloon fight during Carnaval in Ecuador, wore a sari to church on Easter Sunday in India, commemorated America’s independence by cleaning goat pens for a British man in Uganda, rang in 2012 (yes, 2012) in Ethiopia, and celebrated someone’s 110th birthday in Nepal (schools were closed for it). I was in Rwanda for my birthday and had a surprise party with cake, a confetti cannon, and the movie Elf. I’ll be in Barcelona on Thanksgiving, so who knows what the day will look like, but I’ll manage to celebrate somehow. It’s been so fun to find new meaning in gathering and celebrating holidays in different cultures around the world.
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Finding new favorite foods – I’ve tried a lot of new foods this year, and the best thing is when you can eat for cheap. You can get a rolex (like a breakfast wrap) for 10 cents in Uganda. I loved empanadas in South America. In India we had all sorts of great, spicy food like curry and samosas. You have to try momos in Nepal, and kati rolls are yummy too.
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Greetings – in some parts of the world, when you arrive to a gathering you greet everyone one by one. Different places have different rituals, a combination of kisses, hugs, or handshakes that never end. It’s so personal and welcoming.
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Community – on the race you live in teams of six or seven people. You do ministry together, cook together, clean together, go to church together, hunt rats together, laugh together, cry together, and grow together. Sometimes it’s overwhelming because you have limited opportunities to be alone. If you have conflict with someone, you are forced to get over it quickly (which honestly is not a bad thing). One of the biggest ways I’ve grown this year is learning how to be less particular and more selfless. You learn to give up your preferences and serve those around you.
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Full time ministry – I am going to miss doing missions full time. It feels so good to wake up each day and know that we are doing purposeful work to invest in ministries around the world.
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Travel/adventure days – I am so grateful and blown away that I’ve had the opportunity to see so many different parts of the world. These are some memories I will never forget: paragliding in Colombia, visiting Machu Picchu, eating fish and chips in London, touring a castle in Scotland, hiking the Himalayas, seeing Everest from a distance, waking up to African sunrises, rafting the Nile, and drinking way too much coffee in each of these places.
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Endless learning – I learn new things every day on the race. Culture, language, geography, religion, history, travel logistics, flora and fauna, budgeting, the metric system, construction, communication–the list is endless, and I am hungry for more. I never want to stop learning and growing.
