It was one year ago that we were the ones sitting in those chairs. We were the ones in that big meeting room, excited and terrified.
Standing in that room one year later I got to worship with you, it was an honor to be in the room while you sang out statements of faith over your year. It was an honor to feel the vulnerability in the room and all the unknowns.
Standing there and walking through that hotel brought back every memory of my launch on the exact same dates last year. Every emotion that I felt came rushing back and it felt like id never even left on the race, it felt like I was the one about the launch out.
I remember being there and looking to the future with wonder, having no idea what was about to happen. Having no idea what memories id walk away with my race with…what stories would I later tell? What was my race going to be? Who was I going to be at the end of it all?
Now I have to look into the past to remember the race. Its not this coming year, its the year that already happened and I know exactly what it looked like and the stories that came out of it. I know who I am at the end of it all.
September 9th was the day our squad flew out, suuuuuper early in the morning. We were headed for India and we couldnt wait to just be on the plane!
My best words of advise: Enjoy it.
Enjoy the fact that you boarded a plane thats flying internationally to a place you’ve probably never been before and you really don’t have a great idea of what life is going to look like once you get there. You’ll miss the unknown after this year …you’ll miss not knowing what home will look like the next month or where youll be laying your head that evening.
Enjoy that A/C really hasn’t made its way many places. It feels weird and uncomfortable for a bit and then its just normal so go ahead and just learn to enjoy the circumstances. Oddly enough you miss this part too…I came home and sat outside in the Georgia sun just to sweat for a few hours because it didnt feel right not to.
Enjoy all the ridiculous ways you’ll get around this year. Seriously. Its so boring here in America. All the buses, overnight trains and buses, sketchy totally doesnt look like it can withstand the weight of actual people local transportation, unmarked taxis ….whatever is the normal – enjoy it, waiting for you back here in America is plain good ‘ole cars…and for the most part people even follow the rules.
Enjoy being lost. You’ll see sign after sign after sign written in languages you have no idea how to read or speak. You’ll become familiar with some places and be able to navigate yourself around enough to get by but you’ve first gotta get lost a little bit in trying to find your now ‘normal spots’. Even if its in the middle of the day heat in SE Asia…find a way to enjoy it. Everything at home will still be written in English and when you come back your world will suddenly seem very very small, lost will be a feeling you crave because back home you know how to get everywhere. And at the very least, everyone else speaks English too so you could totally figure it out within a few minutes and not have to speak in broken English and see how good your charades game is.
Enjoy your team….including the teammates you really don’t enjoy. They really are there for you. They are kinda all you have too. Sure, you could text or FaceTime home but they don’t know what you are living day in and day out. They have no way of truly understanding what life has been like on the race. Find ways to enjoy your team, whatever team it may be. As much as it doesnt feel like it right now, you will miss them being in your life ALL THE TIME. Forget reverse culture shock, when you come home, you’ll miss your squad and the friendships that have been built and when you find yourself standing in Target a week after being home, you’ll just wish you had someone else there that knew every thought running through your head without having to talk about it. You’ll miss all the deep, funny, hard and incredible conversations that just happen when you are living intentionally with other people. Learn to enjoy whoever is around you.
Enjoy the hard moments. Some months there might be more hard moments than easy ones. Allow yourself to see the beauty of the place you stand. Give yourself some grace and when your teammates are in the hard moments offer them grace. You will have days where you just don’t care, where you aren’t feeling it and its not all that you thought it was going to be…you may wonder why you are still in Zimbabwe instead of at home on your couch comfortably in your sweat pants (which you left at home) underneath a blanket eating popcorn while watching Friends. Offer yourself some grace, let your team know, just be real…from someone who fought that for so many months- its worth it. I give you full permission to speak this phrase over yourself or other squad mates “theres grace for that”.
Enjoy ministries, even the ones you really don’t enjoy. When they said to us at training camp and probably launch as well that there might be some months we do ministry that we don’t really love, they were sugar coating it. At least from my experience, I rarely remember hearing what we would be doing that month and being excited. And for a very long time I failed to enjoy a lot of what we got to do over the year. Opt into joy even when you are invited to another house and somehow have to eat the food they give you, when you are asked to shovel gravel and assembly line it to the top of a two story building for five hours, even when you are asked to love on children and you are on the brink of an emotional breakdown yourself, even when you have days where theres nothing going on and you are bored out of your mind as they day slowly ticks away. Opt into joy when you are asked to teach english for the one hundred and seventh time even though you have no idea what you are doing and keeping a classroom of however many children is not your area of gifting, even when you are asked to bathe old people, even when you are asked to sing for the fifty fourth time, or when you are asked to move all your bedding every single day so that evening activities can be held in the church sanctuary. Enjoy the crazy ridiculous stuff you get to do, find a way to opt into joy no matter what you are doing or where you are.
Enjoy the awkward. Whether it be awkward with your team…which will happen….tension is a real thing. Or it be awkward ministry tasks, learn to laugh and not take everything so seriously. Respectfully find the humor in the high tension moments…even if you’re the only one who’s willing to find it. For real, calm down and realize that you can relax. You will be asked to do some awkward things throughout the year…look over at your teammates…share a look, the one that says “they want us to do what now?!” and realize that its the opportunity of a lifetime to step into the uncomfortable and choose humility.
Enjoy the living conditions. Enjoy the months you get to live out of a tent and its so hot that you absolutely don’t need a sleeping bag. The months you fall asleep and wake up hot and sweating. Enjoy all the cold showers…the months you get to take bucket showers or all you have is a trickle of water because water pressure isn’t a thing. The months you get to use a squatty, the months with the roaches, giant spiders, maggots, beetles, and cicadas. You’ll miss how loud and busy everything is…the stimulus overload. The wedding music for days in Cambodia, the men hawking up lugies every morning, all the horns, chanting, and market living. Enjoy living out of a pack, because everything more than that now just feels like excess. Enjoy learning to make home anywhere.
Enjoy the wonder. Your life is incredible! It was before the race and it is now too! You are living in another world and you are getting to see beauty in a way you’ve never seen it before. The Lord made this Earth so stunning. Look around you. Yes, including that shack on the side of the road with piles of trash around it thats selling no food item you are familiar with. Live from a place of wonder. You are seeing, walking down, and living on streets, back alleys and small villages that only a small percentage of people will ever lay eyes on. Those off days where you find your way to some waterfall, mountain, theme park, elephant camp, beach, or wherever else…take a second to be in awe of where you are and take it all in. Your Father invited you and trusted you with an incredible journey.
Take time to remember you really are living it. As normal as it has come to feel, its not. At least to every family, friend and co-worker back in the states. Most people never entertain the idea that they could really travel the world, seeing and doing amazing things and all with the heart of sharing our amazing Jesus. You’re living it…so for every hard, awkward, funny, wondrous, boring, crazy moment take time to remember its amazing and its so worth it.
