The race is over in 7 days…….what?
I’ve been on this journey since summer 2018 and I’ll be back in America on May 31st. Crazy stuff. While I feel like I started this journey yesterday and now it’s about to come to a close, there were also times on the race where I felt like I had been there forever. The last 9 months have without a doubt changed my life. I’ve grown and I’ve learned, I’ve stretched and I’ve been uncomfortable. There were times when I seriously wanted nothing more than to go home and there were times when I couldn’t believe that this was my life. It’s hard to summarize the past 9 months into one clear and concise paragraph but I want to try and walk you through some of my favorite times and some of my most challenging. I’ll start with Cambodia.
I lived in Battambang, Cambodia for 3 months. Beginning of September to beginning of December. The first month of the race my team was on cooking duty. I’m not going to lie, when they first told me we were cooking every meal for 50 people for 1 month, I cried in the bathroom for 5 minutes. It was tough knowing that everybody else got to play with kids or be teachers at local schools, and I flew all the way across the world to chop vegetables. My team leader Corbyn told me that that first month was going to be what I made it. It was up to me whether I sulked around for 30 days or I made cooking fun. That first month on the race ending up being one of my favorites. My team got to go to the market every morning and build relationships with the local fruit and veggie vendors. We listened to music and danced in the kitchen everyday. We got to serve our squad mates 3 times a day and it was so fulfilling. That first month taught me how to serve with an open and grateful heart and I wouldn’t trade our cooking days for anything.
2 months later, still in Cambodia, I had my favorite ministry of the entire race. I got to be a middle/high school teacher at a Buddhist school called Paññasastra. Getting to teach there everyday was one of the biggest blessings I’ve ever experienced. I taught 5 different English classes for kids 10 to 17 years old. I got to play games and read to them and build so many friendships. Lesson planning for those kiddos was such a cherished time. Because it was a Buddhist school, I was required to wear long skirts everyday to teach and I felt just like Miss Honey from Matilda all the time. It was great. 🙂 On my last day of teaching, all 5 of my classes threw me parties, got me 5 cakes, and wrote me endless letters that I will keep forever. Even though I wasn’t allowed to talk about Jesus in that school, I talked to him everyday in the faces of those amazing kids I had the pleasure to get to spend time with. I love Paññasastra with my whole heart and I’m so thankful I had the opportunity to do ministry there.
Now lets hop over to Ethiopia. Month 4, 5, and 6. As soon as I stepped off that plane in Africa I knew I was in a really special place. The country of Ethiopia is just drenched in the Holy Spirit and it’s so evident all around. For the entire 3 months we were in Ethiopia, we lived and did ministry on an orphanage compound called Hopethiopia. The relationships I got to form with the kids and staff there were my favorite of the whole race. The people there are so incredibly welcoming and loving, and you feel it as soon as you step foot on their land. While in Ethiopia, I got to do a range of different ministries. Some of those included teaching the 30 or so kids that lived on the campus, doing construction on a new building, planting and watering new trees at a reforestation site, helping load water jugs at the well on to donkeys, and doing home visits in the surrounding community. My favorite thing to do by far though was just hang out and spend time with the kiddos that we got to live with. Each one of them was pure sunshine. As much as I loved the relationships I had there though, Ethiopia was my hardest part of the race. I struggled a lot with walking out my Catholicism alone and felt very isolated for a lot of my time in Africa. I got really homesick as a result of not being able to talk to my mom and brother and friends, and I also developed a gnarly parasite that had me throwing up every 30 minutes for a week straight. The Lord walked me through a lot of trials over those 3 months in Ethiopia but there was so much I learned because of it. I got to know God as a best friend. Anything I was lacking was always filled up by him. Ethiopia was a really sweet time of getting to hear God’s voice so clearly and learning how to rely on him fully. I miss my kids there dearly and I really hope that I’m able to back there one day.
On to month 7. Nicaragua. Wow, wow, wow, what can I say about Nicaragua! I loved every second of it. Nicaragua was a visible answer to so many of my prayers months before. It felt like a breath of fresh air for me. For the 1 month we were in Nicaragua, we stayed at a farm called REAP in the city of Granada. What a beautiful city that is. Granada felt like home to me. The streets were colorful and vibrant and the people were so friendly and warm. I got to attended mass with the Bishop of Granada and go to Confession in one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen. While at Reap our main ministry was prayer walking around the community. We went house to house and got to literally share the Gospel with the people of Nicaragua and pray for healing for them. It was amazing. Also while in Nicaragua, my mom came to visit! We got to go to the garbage dump together and serve food and make friends with the workers there. We also got to prayer walk around and go on a boat to an island that was solely inhabited by monkeys! It was so much fun having my mom with me and getting to show her a little bit of what life had been like for me on the race. Also while in Granada, 2 other mission teams of high schoolers came from Texas and Ohio to do ministry, and they lived with us for a week each. I became really close friends with a few them and they were big motivators for me to finish the race well. They were huge blessings for me and I’m very grateful that I got to cross paths with them. Overall, Nicaragua was my favorite country I got to live in these past 9 months. Very happy and cherished memories there.
And the last 2 months of the race, month 8 and 9. Costa Rica baby. Costa Rica has been a dream. Time here has flown by so quickly. Costa Rica is beautiful but it feels a lot like America. There’s a Walmart and McDonalds right down the street from our house. A big change from Asia and Africa life. But past the tourism of the country, Costa Rica has a deep and rich history, and the people that live here are so proud of it. My team’s ministry while living here has been going to a community center daily, about 2 hours away, called Renuevos. It’s essentially a Christian community center for women and children who are refugees of Nicaragua. Everyday they offer a class for the women, like jewelry making, cooking, or computer classes, to help them learn how to provide for their families and add to society. While the women are in class, we run a daycare for their kids and then serve them all lunch together at the end. My team also got the opportunity while being in Costa Rica to go up to a summer camp for a week called La Montaña and be camp counselors! Wow, what a time that was. We did so many fun things in that week. We ran the high ropes course, oversaw roller skating, belayed rock climbers, served meals to the campers, ran an archery class, hosted games, and so much more. We became such close friends with the staff members, I never wanted to leave. That week at La Montaña was definitley one of my favorite weeks of the race.
And now here we are, suddenly 9 months later. Today was my last day of ministry of the entire race. That is so wild to me. I feel like it was just yesterday I was on a plane to Cambodia, yet I also feel so completely different from the girl that cried in the bathroom that first day over having to cook. The Lord has taken me on an incredible journey over the past 9 months and I’m forever changed because of it. Now I start classes at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville just a few weeks after I return to home. I’m nervous about re-entering American life but I’m so excited for the unknown and all the possibilities of my future.
I want to say a BIG thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has followed and supported my journey from day 1. From applying, being accepted, and committing to the race in December of 2017, to now, ending this chapter, on June 1st, 2019. It has truly been the best experience of my life, and I could not have done it without every one of my supporters. Words can’t even describe how lucky I feel to have a community like y’all who celebrate me and encourage me through everything. Y’all’s comments on my blogs are so appreciated. God is so so good. He has walked with me every second of the race and never left me once. He continued to pursue me even when I pushed back. He changed my life. The world race changed my life.
Thank you for letting me live out my dream.
With all the love,
Josie
