It’s early Tuesday morning in the basement of the Adventure’s lodge, and I am pissed.
No one is really saying anything, but the wandering eyes and crossed arms burrowed into the seats across from me say plenty. I fixate on a crack in the spackled ivory ceiling tiles and bite the inside of my lower lip, the tension finally broken by someone’s forward shift and a simple, quiet question:
“Do you guys think we can learn to love one another?”
A few hours earlier, all 48 members of Y-Squad had sat speculating about this vague and mysterious process of being separated into smaller “ministry teams”. After all, 48 people flooding one place in each country each month of the Race didn’t make much sense. We had been made aware early in the week that this process of grouping individuals based on personalities and giftings was an inevitable part of the World Race model.
So why did this feel so wrong?
Several years ago, I read a startling statistic: while half of Western marriages end in divorce, the going rate for arranged marriages is 4%.
Now, that doesn’t take into account that the majority of arraigned marriages occur outside of the United States, where women aren’t given a choice and divorce usually isn’t an option.
But it got me thinking: is it possible that you can learn to love someone?
How good would you be today at riding a bike, if all you had ever done was picked one out, taken it home, then stood in your garage and lovingly admired it?
The excitement of having a new bike would quickly wear off. The enthusiasm and newness would fade. You chose a bike you liked, but taking time to learn to ride that bike is hard, and you don’t want to have to invest in gear or to spend hours getting familiar with it. Learning about the bike requires you to risk several scraped knees, bruises, failure, and generally looking like an idiot for a short period of time before you come to understand how it works.
No one learns how to ride a bike if all they do is chose and admire one they like. There is a steep learning curve where one must chose that bike, again and again, before mastery and true understanding is achieved.
Could the same be said for love?
By dinner time of that same day, the same group that had sat in uncomfortable, agitated silence only hours earlier was hurtling down the central Georgia highway belting 80’s music and laughing so hard our stomachs ached. There is love living inside our little team – a fresh, hopeful seed of a thing right now, but it gets stronger by the day.
We didn’t choose each other, but we chose to love each other.
We also chose the team name ETC., which stands for “Embrace the Chaos”. Every girl on this team is committed to the process of learning to love and grow alongside one another – no matter the differences and hardships we will face.
So, dear supporters, friends and family, meet my new sisters!
(From left to right: Emily, Felicia, Faith, Taylor, Tabitha, and me.)
Any time you hear from me for the next five or six months, the chances are that I will be in close proximity to any one (or all) of these women. They’ll be the ones I cook, teach, snuggle, serve, argue, explore, cry, grocery shop, hike, pray, and do life with until early spring of next year.
Two more things before you go enjoy the rest of your Tuesday:
Our first stop on the World Race will be Negotin, Serbia, where Team ETC. will be living together in the city and working with a local ministry to build community small groups for youth and married couples! GUYS. Ask me how excited I am about this type of relational ministry. Ask me.
I AM SO EXCITED.
Lastly, in closing, I have an incredibly exciting announcement: I was asked to be one of the Lead Storytellers for the World Race!
A Storyteller’s job is to do photography, video, graphic design and blogging while out on the ministry field, basically doing just what the title implies – telling stories. I am over the moon about this opportunity to be mentored and coached in how to become a better writer and advocate for untold stories across the globe, and ask that you would please pray for me and my teammates as we gear up for this responsibility!
I’ll leave for Atlanta a little earlier than the rest of our team and will now be departing for the Race the morning of September 5th. So if we haven’t had time yet this summer to get coffee, daydream, grab dinner, go outside and play or generally cause a ruckus together – let’s make it happen, okay?
47 more sleeps.
