This past weekend I got a taste of what this July is going to be like coming home back to the States, but also what the Lord still wants to do with me during the next five months leading up to then.
He wants to reveal to me more and more how He is a God of detail who works out every piece of the puzzle to fit perfectly for His children He cares so deeply for.
And this weekend was all about finite details that all needed to come together.
It began at launch when our route changed from Japan to Lesotho for this month, and I frantically texted her asking how close her wedding would be to the country.
She replied that it was just on the other side of the mountains, right next door to me.
And all of my initial disappointment of not going to Japan (and forsaking the possibility of going to Tokyo Disneyland) dissipated immediately.
He knew far before launch that at this point on the Race I would desperately need to find rest. I would need to step away and gain perspective.
He was already setting the plan in motion for His details to fan out in order for me to find my respite there. To see such a beautiful friend walk down the aisle and celebrate her in the new life she was walking into. As well as, leave everything I had out on the dance floor.
She is one of my most favorite humans. She has an incredibly genuine and beautiful heart and I had the blessed experience of discipling her through her last couple years of college. I fell in love with her when she came through sorority recruitment about six years ago and I sat across from her in round two at TriDelta. She told me how she was from South Africa, the country I had just spent that summer in. In that moment I knew the Lord had a specific plan for her in my life.
Even though she joined the sorority next door and not mine, I’m so thankful Jesus set the details in motion from that conversation to make her someone who would be a large part of my latter years in Gainesville.
This past weekend she walked down the aisle in the Drakensburg Mountains of South Africa, and much to my surprise and overwhelming joy, I got to take a seat in the chapel and watch it all happen.
While being on the Race, in person communication with close friends from home ended in September when I said multiple heart wrenching goodbyes for the year. So when 6 months in the Lord allowed me to see them again, He showed me more of how much He takes the details of my life into the palm of His hand.
Logistically getting up the mountain was an adventure in itself. Our host, Pieter, took us across the border to catch our bus leaving from Ladybrand that would take us to Harrismith. From Harrismith we then needed to get a taxi to take us up the mountain to the hotel.
What ended up happening though was that at the gas station they looked at me like I had sprouted a second head when we asked them for the number for a taxi. It was an extremely frustrating and confusing conversation as neither of us spoke the other’s first language.
So instead of just being stranded at the gas station that provided no promise of any help like we had originally assumed would happen, I decided to run after a taxi stopped at the traffic light in front of the gas station and just ask him.
Well, you can imagine the incredibly surprised look on the taxi driver’s face as a tall, blonde, white American girl popped up at his window in the middle of the street asking for help.
After some negotiating we finally jumped in his taxi that would take us to Bergville to meet up with one of his friends that would then take us up to the hotel.
Even though we had taken a bus and two taxis to get up to the Cathedral Peak Hotel, I didn’t believe it was actually happening until I was standing in the lobby being hugged by Alexis and Melissa and staring at their faces.
But there I stood in the lobby looking at two of my best friends, 5 months before I was supposed to.
The Lord knew what I needed. He put the details together.
Alexis’s mom, Laurie, gave me a hug, and I just held on. Sometimes you just need a mom hug, and to rest in the unconditional love that comes in their arms.
Later that night as Alexis got ready, I sat and talked with Mrs. Laurie. If there were any one reason for me to be there that weekend it would have been held in that conversation.
I was talking with Lex about how this year the Lord was transforming my views about a lot of big moments to come for me in my life. Views on a future career and marriage and the possibility of being open to it and what it would look like for me.
Marriage has always been a touchy subject with me. It has always been hard for me to desire it and to imagine someone loving me for forever. It’s always a struggle for to think of marriage not eventually ending up in just being indifferent roommates with each other, one of us hurting each other too deep, kids taking precedent and forgetting each other, or losing the goofiness and pieces of who I am with the sacrifice of tying myself down to another individual.
You could say I was a little jaded on the subject. So I never saw it as a definite or necessity in my life.
Then the Lord took me on the Race and introduced me to Freddy and Prenda Zefi in Albania. He showed me a couple 16 years into marriage who had three kids and were just as goofy and sarcastic and in love as teenagers, they had not forgotten about each other. Their marriage put the chisel to the thick glass case around my heart and pounded the first crack in it.
He introduced me to Krystle and Kevin Gray in Greece who sat me down after praying about it as a couple to have a hard conversation and talk to me about my worth and how I am to view myself. They came at me like a team, showing me how well it could be done, and loved me by loving each other well. The crack spread wider.
In Lesotho our hosts Pieter and Keila were two of the best humans this side of heaven. Pieter loved to joke with me so when I asked him about how he and Keila met, he gave me the whole elaborate story and then asked if he had gotten it right by his wife because he knew I had talked to her about it earlier. He might have been joking around when he said that but I could tell in his story how he deeply valued her. It was beautiful. And it deepened the crack more.
Then the next thing I know I’m sitting in a chapel in South Africa six months into my Race with great friends from home surrounding me. I witnessed the marriage of two people who know what it means to endure and to fight for each other. Who knew what they were getting into, and that choosing each other everyday was worth it.
I did not expect for this to be why the Lord took me on the trek up the mountain, but the bride and groom put a large crack in the glass case. Their marriage may have just begun but they already have come so far and set a beautiful precedent for others to follow in what it means to pursue Jesus when you pursue each other, especially from being continents away from each other.
So in my talk with Mrs. Laurie she broke it down for me. She was the final piece in the details the Lord put together for me in this weekend.
Sitting in their room I looked around and realized for the first time in 6 months I didn’t have another Racer with me. I felt like I was missing an arm almost, it was so strange not having any of my squad mates that I have done such secluded and solid life with around me. I had not been a part from at least one of them for more than hour (and that was only to go on a run by myself) in the past year.
But that was all part of the details the Lord put together. He knew I needed to get away and gain perspective, to sit with people who knew me and could fill me deep, and who were outside of the World Race culture bubble we get caught in by doing life with the same 45 people doing the same trip together.
He knew it was with them I would find freedom once again.
And then she gave me a hug, just for good measure.
The weekend was a taste of what home will be. I realized that I don’t remember how to have normal conversations with people, so sometimes I stand in the parking lot and ask if they will be driving on dirt roads on their way through South Africa to Cape Town. Forgetting that there are these things called highways.
I realized that my stomach has shrunk and excessive amounts of food will not sit well in it, that hiking is not a normal, everyday activity, that I have become so much more of an observer, and I will have a harder time than I thought in acclimating back to American culture.
But I would not change any of this experience, as incredibly hard as it has been. I will take being strangely culturally irrelevant and inept in coming home, but the ones who care will understand. Whether it is my career or my view of marriage they will rejoice with me in moving forward and see all of the details the Lord is putting in motion. PRAISE.
