The next 11 months will change who you are and launch the trajectory your life is destined to take if you let it.
This year you will become a peanut butter and toilet paper hoarder. You will discover cookies are an acceptable breakfast norm, and you will reach a point where you cannot stand the sight of apples (I will never reach this point, but many of my squad has).
When thinking about a place everyone on my squad has been this year, I instantly think of a tattoo parlor. There is no doubt in my mind you will be faced with the option for you to get a tattoo in every country on the Race. They are much cheaper and more memorable to get it in country. And quite the rush when neither you nor the artist speaks the same language, and you wonder what is going to be the final outcome.
Actually, while I am writing this blog I am currently sitting in a tattoo shop in Vietnam while Cassidy’s rib cage is being adorned with a gerber daisy.
Food controls 75% of conversations and thoughts. You didn’t eat enough. You ate too much. When the next time you are going to eat is. My food versus your food. Sharing food and not really wanting to. What is for breakfast/lunch/dinner. Needing to get snacks for travel days.
You will rarely go hungry, but you might weep at the sight of vegetables if you are lucky enough to get them in front of you because of the scarcity of them in the Asia diet.
On the subject of snacks, stock up for travel days, you will thank me for it when you are on a bus or train during a 52 hour travel day(s) or sitting at the Zimbabwe border crossing for 14 hours.
Hold on, I just got hungry and now need to stop and go talk to my teammates about where we are going for lunch because I didn’t bring snacks to the tattoo parlor – rookie mistake.
Along with food on travel days, never go onto a bus, train, car, or plane without a blanket or jacket. You might not have to use it but you will deeply regret it if you need it and it is stuffed out of reach with your big pack.
The size of bugs all becomes relative. What was once big to you in the States, you will now laugh at and find minuscule in comparison to the new insects you will face overseas.
You will learn to live in a cohabitating community with them in your home. Unless they are flies, and in that case, all the flies need to die. Immediately. And I will help kill them with the fly swatter I bought in month two and have carried with me since.
And back on food, you will find yourself in multiple opportunities to eat bugs cooked to perfection, like the delicacy they are here in Asia.
On a much more appetizing note, you might find yourself clutching a sleeve of lays stax and hugging a slurpee machine in the Philippines because it brings you that much happiness. It is the little moments in the year you will find to be your favorite.
You will gain new friends all over the world, let them love you and pour into you even if it is only for a month. These are the people that make up the meat of your Race, because they are the ones you spend so much time with, outside your team, during the month. Seek them out, learn from them, and love them wholeheartedly back.
Laundry can happen anywhere there is water and soap.
It becomes weather dependent though, on if the sun is out or if it is going to rain when you hang it on the line. So at times, you hang laundry on a line you’ve somehow managed to rig up in a tiny hallway in your hotel that gets some light, hoping for the best they will still be there in the morning.
You will hand wash so many times, you will forget what washing machines are. And I do not think I will even recognize a dryer if I see one, much less how to work it. Nothing quite beats the stiffness in your clothes after they have been hanging on the line air-drying because you could not rinse all of the soap out.
Ahhh, Race Life.
Mysterious bruises show up on your body in the shape of the country or continent you are in and you wonder if it is sign from up above. This year gets rough, and your body takes a toll.
For the rest of your life you will now question if the WC/toilet/bathroom/loo has toilet paper and if it is ok to flush said toilet paper without fear of destroying their whole plumbing system.
Then, walking out of said bathroom and seeing soap in a bathroom is like finding liquid gold. After washing your hands with actual soap you never want to touch anything ever again. You never know how long it will be until your next encounter with it.
Also, bonus points if your shower and toilet are in separate rooms.
Being from Florida I thought I was prepared for all the heat and humidity of Asia – I tell you now how arrogantly stupid I was in that thought. I have never sweated so much in my life.
You will wear ridiculous combinations of clothing. Especially when it comes to ministry appropriate clothing. You will get creative with the two sleeved shirts you have been wearing for the past five months and thai pants that keep ripping in the most unfortunate of places.
So ridiculous that no one on your squad could possibly guess what your style at home really is. Keep them guessing with all of the random combinations the Race allows you to wear. Then wow them after the Race at Project Search Light with your impeccable style, or not. Just be you, wear what makes you comfortable.
A carton of orange juice will become the best cold medicine because you cannot read any of the labels at the pharmacy. You can’t really misinterpret a giant orange on the outside of a juice carton.
I say that, but I very much could be in the wrong there, nothing is ever what you expect it to be on the Race. I thought I had orange juice once time, and it turned out to have yogurt drink in it. I was very sad and regretfully still congested after that endeavor.
You will come home from the Race with an abundance of now useless memorized phone passcodes that were once vital to know in order to get into your squadmates’ pictures.
And my most important notion to you – iced tea will never taste as good as it did out of a bag from the road side stand cooler it was poured from.
Everyone’s Race is at some point a hot mess. Not one person’s is perfect or goes the way they expected. And neither will yours. Just do not waste your time comparing your walk on the Race with those around you. The Lord is doing something unique in each of you.
You will come home at the end of 11 months and you will still be you, but you will be changed.
You will come home and you will be same same, but different.
Think now of who you want to come home as and do not sell yourself short on your answer. And do not shrink back when He begins to refine you into that person and so much more He is calling you up higher into.
TAKE ALL THE PICTURES. Make all the memories. Eat all the things. Do all the things. Take “no” out of your vocabulary when it comes to following Jesus. Stop saying you cannot do things and listen to what the Lord wants to show you all you are capable of, while surrounding yourself with those who empower you to do just that.
Dance to the Asian pop music blaring through the speakers at the coffee shop, paint a time machine for a Christmas play, hug an elephant, spend an afternoon in your Eno with your best friends, climb to the top of a mountain because Jesus told you to, lay on an airport floor with your legs up to make the swelling go down in your cankles, and get matching tattoos.
Learn to get a mango down from a tree from a Zimbabwean, do not fear the long drop in Lesotho, hug a washing machine just because you have it, brave a sand storm because you have no other choice, emcee an amazing event in the Philippines with the Justin to your Jimmy, and get out and push the tuk tuk up a bridge when it runs out of gas.
Put your feet in water and let fish give you a pedicure, zumba dance in the middle of a mall with 200 other filipinos, rollerblade on cobblestone streets in Malaysia, run a 5k turned color run and let your skin be stained for days, go to as many markets as you can, learn to farm lemon grass in Cambodia, and love your teammates and laugh uncontrollably with them as you go deeper with Jesus in everyday.
As the Race comes to a close, you may begin to read posts of friends just starting the Race. You might find yourself envying them and the greenness of their blogs. They haven’t experienced it yet, but you know what is coming for them.
You will swell with nostalgia as you think about your own self in their shoes those many months ago. Trying to manhandle your tent in your living room before training camp – before you ever knew it was destined to be destroyed in a monsoon in Lesotho.
I think about you just starting out, new and shiny, unaware of what Jesus is going to do in you once you have set out. The Lord hasn’t broken you yet and taken you through the dark, vulnerable valleys and the light, elation filled mountaintops the Race inevitably will bring you through.
But I know you will thrive, because you will choose Jesus. Always choose Jesus.
And future Racers, in case you were wondering, One Berth equals the strength of 27 elephants, this is very important to know for your Race.
And this chick could be your squad leader, October routes, get pumped.
