Remember to submit your questions about life as a World Racer in the comments section of this or any of my previous blogs, and I’ll answer them from here in Cambodia!
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I love blogging. I love that it gives me a chance to connect with you all and share this year’s journey with you, even from thousands of miles apart. I love being able to let you in on the joys, the struggles, the ups, and the downs of this crazy thing I’ve lovingly come to call Racer Life.
But I am also fully aware of the ways in which blogging can make every part of Racer Life seem exciting, adventurous, and incredible. Don’t get me wrong; there are absolutely days when Racer Life is exciting, adventurous, and incredible. But there are also days when Racer Life makes me miss home, its pleasures, and its comforts. I think that both kinds of days are completely valid and normal, and in a continued effort to be real and vulnerable, I want to share some of the things that have crossed my mind on both the awesome and the not-so-awesome days. Along with all this, I’ve been trying to remind myself that missing something doesn’t always equal wanting something, if that makes sense. For example, I miss frozen yogurt right now, but I don’t necessarily want frozen yogurt right now. I more just miss the idea of it and what it means to me (or in this case, what it tastes like). So, while there are many things I miss, I’m also completely and utterly aware that God has me RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW for a very specific reason, and I wouldn’t trade this time for anything. I hope that makes sense? Anyways, here are the things.
Things I Love: I love getting to experience the Body of Christ in different places across the world. I love seeing the ways that different people and different cultures worship and fellowship. I love the places in which we have been able to worship, even only four months in to this year; in addition to your normal “church”, we’ve found ourselves worshipping on rooftops, in basements, in one-room schoolhouses, in kitchens, and along roadsides. I love that worship had taken on a whole new meaning to me; worship is bringing whatever you have and using it to serve the Lord. Intercession and intercessory prayer can be worship. Painting can be worship. Baking can be worship. Listening to a podcast can be worship. I love that, while on the Race, worship means using a trash can when you don’t have a drum and a ukulele when you don’t have a guitar.
Things I Miss: I miss the sweet places that God has met me in my muck and dirt and romanced my heart; places like Garden of the Gods, Estes Park, Zoes Café, Glenmere Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park (basically, all the parks). I miss worshiping alongside my mom and dad; those are some of my most precious memories.
Things I Love: I love experiencing international community and meeting new brothers and sisters in every part of the world. I’ve loved growing closer to my World Race Squad (#SSquadBestSquad), my World Race Team, and all the people who have come alongside members of our Racer community to do this journey with us (shout-out to our Squad Leaders, Squad Mentors, Coaches, and State-side Logistics team). I love doing life with people even after the “honeymoon stage”; I love that Racer Life forces you to dig into your community based on the fact that God placed you in each other’s lives and not based on whether or not you like your community. I love that doing life with people here is hard, and it’s raw, and sometimes it sucks a lot, but it’s also ordained by God and He calls it GOOD.
Things I Miss: Like pretty much every Racer you might ask, I miss my community back home. I miss the people who stayed by my side throughout college. I miss the people who held my hand through the rough days and months, and laughed and rejoiced with me through the good days and months. I miss being able to sit with my friends at the end of a long day or week and laugh (and sometimes cry) over a glass of wine. I miss being able to show up unannounced at a friend’s place and eat their leftovers because I was too lazy to cook for myself.
Things I Love: I love that the space and time I used to fill with frivolities (Facebook and Insta for the most part, to be honest) is now filled with spending time with the Lord. I love that I’ve been challenged to see how connecting intentionally with my home base back in America doesn’t necessarily mean connecting more. I love that God is so beyond our understanding of good and gracious and still desires to spend all the time in the world with me, even after 22 years of me not always making Him the top priority. I love that I’m getting to see His face in new ways each time I meet a child, see a sunset, and engage in worship.
Things I Miss: I miss being able to easily connect with someone over a coffee or a beer. I miss the ease at which I felt like I could keep up relationships at home; the natural flow of relational connection. I miss not having to worry about time zone differences.
Things I Love: I love that I’m typing this blog while sitting in my hammock and there are banana trees to my right and mango trees to my left. I love that God called me out of my comfort zone of being able to control my surrounds and my plans and into a year of abandoning my own agenda and going with the flow. I love that the Race allows participants to grow in intentionality while, at the same time, growing in fluidity and abandonment.
Things I Miss: I miss being able to type a blog while sitting in my living room with 14,000 foot mountains in my backyard (or close to it, at least). I miss being able to type a blog in front of the fire place while the snow falls outside.
Things I Love: I love that I’ve been able to try new foods. Some of the strangest foods I’ve tried include octopus, laphing (a Nepali dish made from wet lasagna noodles and dry Ramen noodles), and the large number of unknown items that we eat here in Cambodia. Among some of my favorite foods that I’ve tried include the potato curry and butter naan we ate in India, the egg chow Mein we ate in Nepal, and the coconut coffee, pho, and avocado coffee smoothies we ate in Vietnam.
Things I Miss: I miss knowing what I’m eating. I miss pizza and bazookas from Roma, I miss pretty much everything on the menu from Noodles & Company, I miss the year-around accessibility to pumpkin-flavored baked goods, and I miss cheap (although, not very good quality) sushi from Daruma. Oh, and boy do I miss mac and cheese.
There are so many other things I love and so many other things I miss, but there are also some things I don’t miss. I don’t miss the passivity with which I used to live, I don’t miss the way I scheduled my life down to the hour, and I don’t miss the way I thought my own power and knowledge could get me through the days and months. I don’t miss the way in which I used to choose between the good things and the easy things. I don’t miss the prayer-less, God-less Mondays through Saturdays. I don’t miss the unknowns which used to paralyze me.
I love this adventure that God has called me into, and I love that serving Him has transformed right before my eyes from being a burden to being a pleasure. I love this chapter of my life and all the challenges, tears, growth, and laughter that comes with it. I love digging into what God has for me in this season of Racer Life, even if I have to wait until December to get my hands on some mac and cheese.
