I’m going to speak for my entire squad in this blog because, well, I’m in my tent in Cambodia by myself and they can’t get to me to tell me otherwise. 🙂
We have 22 days.
We started with 11 months and now we are down to DAYS!
The thought of stepping back onto American soil is incredibly exciting.
Knowing what people are saying all the time will be very helpful.
Air-Conditioning, sleeping in our beds, personal vehicles, wifi everywhere and food that we can order in English and receive exactly how we ordered in a timely manner is practically a dream!
We are all so excited to be coming home, seriously.
We have missed you all so much.
We cried at Christmas.
We celebrated weddings and births and engagements and huge accomplishments over horrible wifi in Africa.
We prayed for you.
We have talked about you all so much to our friends on the race.
We’ve shared funny sibling stories.
We’ve laughed at the weird things parents post on Facebook.
We didn’t just gain 42 friends, we gained 42 families.
Know this and remember this as we come home in 22 days.
Over the last year we have lived. Seriously lived. We were intentional in our relationships with each other. We didn’t accept petty conflicts to control our relationships with each other. We have sat on 16 hour busses in Africa together. We have laughed to the point of peeing our pants. We’ve laughed so hard we threw up (this maybe happened more recently). We went to prom together. We sat at tables and ate mystery food while making “what in the world are we eating” faces to each other. We’ve shared so many clothes we don’t even know what we started the race with. We’ve climbed mountains, jumped off bridges, gone skinny dipping, went cliff jumping, had spontaneous midnight snack runs to get snickers, hiked volcanos, been beach bums, and made history seeing the last official One Direction concert with all 5 members. We’ve been with each other through our lows, through our anger, through our sadness, through depression. We’ve sought each other out and had deep relationships with each other. We’ve been there to hug each other after a long day of ministry or travel. We’ve cracked jokes to lighten moods. We’ve spoken truth louder than lies. We’ve loved each other with a supernatural love. We’ve been there through deaths in the family. We’ve prayed for families to get jobs. We’ve shared our deepest secrets and most painful memories of the past. We’ve held each other as we weep. We’ve openly declared our love for each other from the start with no restraint. And we’ve snuggled more than I could even count.
And in 22 days we’re going to land in LA and say goodbye and part ways. And it’s going to be incredibly difficult to say the very least. These people that we’ve spent 24/7 with every single day for 11 months will all of a sudden not be there anymore. The people we can be real with won’t be within arms reach. The people who speak truth and wisdom to us on a moments notice won’t be able to sit and talk with us face to face. The people who have experienced a bus ride with fish and live chickens over our heads and under our feet won’t be there to reminisce with as we’re falling asleep in our hammocks. And our snuggle buddies for the last 11 months will no longer be around.
This is going to be hard for us.
Whether we’re flyin straight home after landing, waiting a few days, road tripping home, or are coming home much, much later… It’s going to be hard.
We are going to be sad and miss each other.
We’re going to try and tell you everything about everyone and all the funny stories that happened.
We’ll definitely end up telling stories over and over again and laughing as hard every single time.
We will have days when we don’t even think about the race.
But we’ll also have those days when we need to just be alone in our room.
And this is okay.
This is normal.
This is needed to process our year.
Don’t take this personally.
This is needed to move onto what’s next.
This is necessary in order for us to adapt back into American culture and life away from being around each other constantly.
Lastly, I wanted to list a few things that you should refrain from asking upon arrival:
1. How was your trip?
2. Describe your year in one word.
3. What’s next?!
4. “.. Are you sure you want to do that? You have $____ in school loans.. You need to settle down and get married… It’s time to get a real job… Ect..”
5. How many people got saved?
6. Do you miss your friends from your squad?
7. You didn’t meet you husband/wife?!
8. What are you going to do for money?
And last but not least:
It will drive us insane if we hear people complaining about not making enough money, not having cold enough AC or hot enough water, having to watch a commercial, or not having the newest clothing or electronic.
I’m sure eventually it won’t be as big of a deal for us to hear, and that’s the scariest part. But when we first get home we might go insane if we hear these things over and over again.
I hope this blog has been helpful to all those reading at home who are either expecting to see me, a friend who’s been on the race, a son or daughter, a grandchild, ect.
We are so excited to see you all in 22 days and share about this crazy adventure we call the World Race!!
Sent from my iPhone
