I’m exactly halfway through my first month on the World Race.
Expectations I had for myself by now:
-to have suffered mental and emotional breakdowns
-to miss my family terribly
-to miss my friends terribly
-to miss improv (more than I do)
-to miss my my data and 4G LTE too much **though to be fair we have pretty reliable wifi when we’re at home here in the church**
-to have fallen into serious conflict with one/all of my teammates
-to have gotten physically ill from food or water or traveling
-to have lost a bag on one of our three flights
-to sleep poorly
-to have cried
-to be more upset about the presence of vermin
-to want to wear more than the same four shirts
-to want to speak more English when my Spanish brain can find no logical way to communicate what I want to say (which happens often)
-to be exhausted
-to want to come home
I had all these expectations of hardship and tears and everything one might assume comes along with abandonment of material and social comforts. At the end of these trials I imagined having a worthy and redemptive story about how even though I can’t see the light now that I can still feel God miraculously leading me out of the darkness and into his arms. And what a FANTASTIC blog post I would write about all of it!!!!!!
*I wish that last part wasn’t a real thought I had*
But none of those things have come to pass. At first I felt like I was doing something wrong. I am so far from home and I missed that fun party and I missed that improv show and I’m missing Fall and [INSERT THING I SHOULD BE MISSING HERE]
What is wrong with me?
Why don’t I feel how a lot of my teammates feel?
Why don’t I want to call my parents?
Why don’t I feel like I should text my friends when I can?
Why haven’t I cried yet??
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
Last week as we were walking to take the metro to el Parque Metropolitano, my wonderful squad leader Charmagne asked me how I was doing. I thought for a second and decided I was doing fine. Very fine. We were on our way to the park! I was even embarrassed to say it because I know so many people in my position are NOT fine at this point. I didn’t want to seem like I was trying to cast off vulnerability and be disconnected. But Charmagne is Charmagne and she is leading our 48-person squad for a reason. Before I could try to search for a problem to address with her she had read my face and said “Hey. It’s ok to be ok.”
What…?
Are you sure?
And then we talked for a while longer. And it felt like the Lord was speaking through her to tell me what I may have considered but didn’t trust was true. He was telling me that my absence of pain does not mean I am absent from my circumstances. It doesn’t mean I don’t love and cherish the people in my life and that things won’t be hard in the future. My chat with Charmagne was helping to confirm with me that God has provided me the gift of comfort in this season. Sometimes I wish it were harder so I would lean into him more but he’s teaching me how to be present with him even when things are going really well.
Alas, I don’t have the story I thought I would by now. Instead I’ll share the things I thank him for each day. I want to share the tangible ways he has blessed me in past seasons and my current one.
-I’m thankful that I know the amount of spanish I know. Thank you Lord for pushing me to develop that skill and providing me with the opportunity to use it in my life long before I came to live in South America.
-Thank you for my health. Thank you that I haven’t had to touch the few meds I brought for traveler’s diarrhea. Thank you for giving me a body that does pretty well without medication in general. Thank you that I don’t have to lug around prescription bottles and take up precious bag weight with bottles and pills.
-Thank you for moving me around so much when I was growing up. Thank you for the practice you’ve given me in being far from home.
-Thank you for my parents. Thank you for giving me parents who encourage me to leave even if it breaks their hearts to see me go. And that they don’t need to hear from me everyday (but yes mental note to check-in more often)
-Thank you for my friends. My friends who have supported me in this every step of the way and continue to love on me even if I don’t text them back. Thank you for giving me friends who pursue me and don’t make me feel guilty for taking this year to step away from them.
-thank you for teammates who are respectful and kind, and who are beginning to understand my weird nature and jokes and failures.
-thank you for hot showers, our own kitchen, cots, running water, reliable-ish WiFi, space to exercise, cool mornings and nights, warm days, and a jam-packed ministry schedule
-thank you for Pastor David and our entire church home. *This one I could write an entire blog about and still not come close to accurately portraying.*
I don’t have the words to describe the blessing this first month has been to my team but I try anyway. Thank you for the besos, the abrazos, the jugito, the laughs, the questions, the care, the rides to the supermarket, the endless prayers, the cakes, the folded laundry, coffee, and truest warmest welcome into their family and lives.
-Thank you for giving me a drive to read your word. Thank you for supernaturally changing my desire to read Genesis. A book I have feared and loathed HAVING NEVER READ MORE THAN A CHAPTER since I received my first bible.
-Thank you for bringing me here and for making it easier on me. I know it can’t be like this forever, but for now God I thank you that my heart is content and my burdens are light.
Thanks for reading this y’all. I do love and miss you, just not in the way I had expected
