Welcome to Part 2 of Wrapping Up the World Race! After month three was complete in Bulgaria we took a couple long flights, with a layover in Russia (bummer we weren’t allowed to leave the airport), where we finally ended up in Southeast Asia!!
Month 4, Vietnam:
As soon as I stepped off the plane in Vietnam I knew I was in a completely different world. Everything seemed so different than what I was used to. Our ministry host was a very sweet family, and as a result Vietnam became one of my favorite counties. We were just outside the city of Ho Chi Minh (formally known as Saigon), which if you know much about the Vietnam war is incredibly pact full of history. Our ministry host ran a child day care for people who struggled to afford child care elsewhere. This allows families to get another job creating more revenue for the household. Our host eventually wants to make the daycare into an orphanage as well, however, they are having a hard time getting approval from the communist government. While there we helped with painting, construction, and teaching evening English classes to the kids and parents.
Fun fact, my team and I all went to a Thanksgiving church potluck where we accidentally ate dog!
Month 5, Cambodia:
Cambodia was a bit of a strange month for me. To give some context, our squad started out having three “Alumni Squad Leaders” who had all been on the World Race before. They were with us for the first five months of our trip, with the last of these months being spent training three new “Raised Up Squad Leaders” from within our own squad. I had the privilege of getting asked to be one of these Raised Up Squad Leaders. So the month of Cambodia was mostly spent getting trained. We did what you would consider “class room” training and then later some practical on field training. During my on field training I was able to build some relationships with some Buddhist monks, which was really fun. We hung out and got to help them a little in their English, although not too much as they already were essentially fluent. Cambodia is also where I spent Christmas, in an apartment along with Megan and Brie (the other two raised up leaders) and Danny, Carson, and Hope (the three alumni leaders). We made pancakes and watched movies, it felt like a little piece of home.
Fun fact, when we asked some of the monks what their favorite music was they stated “Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande!”
Month 6, Thailand:
Thailand was our “Manistry” month, meaning all the guys from the squad got to all be on one team together. We lived with an extremely sweet family who ran their own orphanage. The family had recently purchased a piece of land in which they were slowly landscaping and preparing the land to build a larger building, as God provided (financially), so that they could house and take care of more children. As a result, this month was spent doing mostly physical labor which went along quite nicely with the whole “Manistry” month theme. We dug out bamboo roots and dug a couple huge holes to be used for different purposes.
Fun fact/story, some of us decided to use our off days to rent mopeds and take a road trip to the next city. It ended up being a crazy adventure, including driving through some of the most beautiful mountains I’d ever seen, bribing corrupt police officers, and almost running out of gas in the middle of the jungle, where we would’ve been stuck all night! We found out later there were wild tigers in this jungle! It was awesome! An adventure I will never forget!
Month 7, Myanmar (formally known as Burma):
In Myanmar I stayed with Team SOZO, there were seven of us plus our host, his wife, their one year old baby, and our host’s brother-in-law all living in one small apartment designed for two to three people. Talk about tight quarters! We slept on our air pads on the living room floor all side by side to each other. Every morning we had to cram all our stuff into a small room, because the living room also served as the class room where we taught English in the evenings, and where they had a church service on Sunday’s. Most of our time was spent building relationships with the people that came to the English classes.
Fun fact, right underneath our apartment was one of my favorite restaurants from the Race. I would get a huge plate of the best chicken fried rice I’d ever had and it was less than $2! Needless to say, I ate their literally everyday at least once if not twice!
Southeast Asia was a blast! It was a huge privilege to experience firsthand the Eastern world and get to share God’s love with the people there. That concludes Part 2 of Wrapping Up the World Race! But stay tuned for Part 3 to find out how South America went and to find out what I’m doing now that the Race is over!
