So this vlog (video-log) is very different from any other video I’ve made so far. It is real, it is raw, and it’s a deeper look into my life on the Race. This video is coming from a place of vulnerability for me to post and let you guys into this. It’s not about a day-to-day look into ministry or an off day, but it is mainly me talking to my camera processing life and how it’s not always easy on the Race.
Yes, I have this amazing opportunity to travel around the world and do various kinds of ministry for 11 months of my life and I am very grateful for this opportunity. But being on the World Race is really just learning how to live my daily life in a different country each month. By this point in the Race, we have it down. Travel days are usually long, squished, and sometimes bring car sickness. We usually have a rest day or a few hours of rest once we get to our ministry site to recuperate from the travel day. The next day is orientation. We meet our host’s ministry staff and are usually given a tour of where we will be doing ministry. We are given new rules of how to dress, whether we can walk around by ourselves during the day or at night or whether we have to stay in a group for security reasons, how food and water will be provided for us or whether we will be given a budget (part of our support-raising costs) to buy it ourselves (either cheap restaurants or get groceries and make it ourselves), what is considered appropriate or inappropriate in this new culture, etc. Then either later that day or the next day we start ministry. We’re thrown in to something that’s already been around before we got there and we’re given assignments of how to help continue the work, and then there will be people who come after us who will take up these tasks we were given when we leave.
This pattern is the only norm and structure we’ve grown accustomed to in the past 8 months. We’ve also learned more about who we are and how to help each other (teammates and squadmates) grow by giving feedback with love and being there for each other in this constant change that has become our daily lives on the Race.
This video addresses some of the things I was processing through around the halfway mark of the Race, 5 1/2 months in to our 11 month long journey. I talk about something I struggled with in Myanmar and how I found encouragement from my teammates and from things God was teaching me at the time. Since I am behind on videos, this video addresses something I was working through about 3 months ago, not something I am working through now. But me having the courage to post this video and let you guys into these deep moments of my life, I hope will encourage you to find hope in things you might be struggling with, let you into who I am a little bit more, and encourage you to go to the Lord about things you might be struggling with instead of trying to fix things on your own.
So without further ado, I give you my video “Capturing Real Emotion” from Myanmar!
