I'm sitting here in an apartment in Padre Las Casas in the heart of the Dominican Republic with my family of seven, aka, Team Monarch. Never thought I would actually get here. Never thought I would make it to a foreign country. Never thought I would actually make it to the launching of the January 2012 route 1 for the World Race but I did. I'm on the World Race!!!!!! I'm a World Racer!!!!! All the stories I've read for the past seven months; all the time I've spent preparing myself; all the time I've spent writing letters, making phone calls, planning fundraisers and having them fall through on me; all the time I've spent stressing about deadlines drawing near and the unthinkable amount of money I would need to meet those deadlines; all the time I've spent on my knees in the bathroom at work praying that God show up with that money; all the time I've spent excitedly typing facebook statuses about that money I stressed about and prayed about that just showed up in my account and here I am and all the glory to God. Only by God does something like this happen. Only by God pouring His love on me when I certainly didnt deserve it and putting it on the hearts of all those that donated to make a committment to support me am I sitting where I'm sitting today. So, thank you to my awesome and amazing Father. Thank you to my awesome and and amazing supporters.
When we think about community, what do we really think about? What do we call "community" or think "community" is? How do we define it? Can "community" become more than just a noun? Can it become a verb? Can we put "community" into action? At launch training, we were given a task and that was for our team to define "community" and by killing two birds with one stone, we introduced Team Monarch to the world and defined "community" at the same time. Here is what we came up with:
