Step into a scene from my life last week: navigating the streets of Dublin to find a doctor, spiritually full but running on an empty energy tank with my stomach churning like the rainclouds dotting the Irish sky. As I entered the Clondalkin Medical Centre, my eyes turned upon a plump, friendly-faced woman with thick red glasses who immediately peppered me with questions.
“Age?”
“Twenty-eight.” (Sadly I cannot lie to this sweet lady)
“Residence?”
“The Carmac campground I guess.” (I figured that would be better than homeless world traveler)
“Surname?”
“Is that my last name?” (I don’t speak Irish English)
….so went the prelude to my eventful day in Dublin. You could say it was not exactly how I had pictured spending my week in Ireland. After finishing up our time in Haiti our squad moved on to the land of leprechauns, Lucky Charms and the Lord for the Awakening, a week-long conference for all active and alumni World Racers. It was a time of refreshment and renewal…that is, until I got sick. While it turned out to be dehydration and I felt better a couple days later, for some reason I kept replaying the few words I exchanged with the ruby-spectacled receptionist in my head.
“Occupation?”
“Marketing. Uh, I mean missionary.”
That was it. I believe I even turned to my teammate Megan and said, “That’s weird.” I’d never answered that question with that response before.
A few days, many cathedrals and a couple of Guinnesses later, my team found ourselves flying into Budapest, Hungary and from there traveling to Chisinau, Moldova by train for our next month of ministry. This month we are working in partnership with another team from our squad, and we spent some of our 35 hours of train travel getting to know each other better. It was during one of these conversations that I shared with my squadmate Tommy about my career in marketing before the Race and why I love it. For me, I explained, marketing is about fulfilling a need that people sometimes don’t even know they have. Granted, there is a lot of marketing done towards peoples’ perceived “needs” that really aren’t needs at all. But there can be times when marketing legitimately helps people – for example, in my last job at PetSmart, informing customers about training tools which ultimately lead to a better behaved pet and thus a more enjoyable family experience. Or, of course, marketing events like the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk I participated in last year. It’s the reason I love what I do.
