I’ve been making lots… and lots… of phone calls lately.
It’s funny how, at this point in life, whenever I begin a conversation with “I’ve got something exciting to tell you!”, the person to whom I’m speaking does not expect me to say, “I’m going overseas again!” If you knew the fourteen friends of mine who got engaged over Christmas break (not exaggerating…) you’d know what most people would expect me to say. But if announcing the September Race to any of my loved ones could be more fun… making them wonder “Did she meet someone?” first does just that.
More awesome than the Race itself (at this point) is the number of people I have to tell.
My church families are numerous.
My friends… everywhere… love relentlessly.
And my actual family is simply ginormous.
(and that’s just part of one grandmother’s side.)
Listing people for my support team made me feel like the most over-loved person alive. I am overwhelmed by how much I have. I’ve also started taking note of things I’ll probably miss next year while “sleeping on tables to avoid the rats” as Rusty Jackson put it. Though that doesn’t actually bother me so much… has anyone else been warned against “romanticizing poverty”?
These are the main things I figure I’ll miss:
hot showers
full-size beds
abundant electricity and running water
HD cable (mostly TLC for four reasons: wedding dresses, cake, cake, and midgets)
paved roads
not my money-sucking car
yellow mustard
peanut butter
toilets that you sit on and flush
$16 hair cream stuff
green lawns
Now that the list is written down, I’m surprised by how much of it has to do with the bathroom. And I wish I were kidding about the $16 hair cream. Am I serious?! That’s totally unnecessary. I’m torn between cutting back on things now, or enjoying them while I can. Not that I could “cut back” on using normal toilets. Just wondering. For those of you who have done long-term missions before, what would you recommend about this? Live it up or phase it out?
-Katie
