A breakdown of my year in review with my favorite pictures from each month.
(1) Team Kairos
Kyle, Jamison, Shirletha, Catherine, Me, Greg
My number ones. We had our significant ups and downs but they will always be my people I started this insane thing with. For that I am individually thankful for each of them on so many levels. The unlikeliest of team members we were, but I love them all so deeply and they will always remain in a special place of my heart.
These individuals showed me more grace than I ever deserved and I am proud to have been their team leader for this season as we figured everything out together.
Also, shout out for Greg’s ridiculously long arms and selfie abilities for all of our team pictures.
Month 1: Albania
Good or bad, any one who has done the Race will be able to recall their first month with nostalgic detail. It is a month completely full of firsts. First host, team, ministry, and country to name a few big ones. Our first month while the rest of our squad was in Serbia, Team Kairos did a 52 hour travel day to get to Marikaj, Albania to work with Hope for the World Albania. We soon came to find out that Hope for the World had plans for us to visit 3 other cities around Albania so we found ourselves covering most of the southern part of the country.
Our ministry was mainly relational anywhere we went and had us spending most of our time with teenagers and loving them through playing card games or ping pong, having girls’/boys’ nights to pull them away from their phones, and hearing their stories.
Albania was full of castles, learning what good lighting was for pictures according to Shirletha and Catherine, 50 lek gelato, Greg selfies, painting a mural, Insanity in the gym, Exotic Fanta, and experiencing what it really meant to love people on a deeper level than I ever had before.
Month 1: Italy and Kosovo
Our first month was probably the month we ended up traveling the most. We made our way over to Italy for a day and got poured on after searching for pizza and gelato- one of my favorite days/trips with Kairos.
While we were in Bajram Curri, we were asked to go to Kosovo to spend a few days doing construction at a camp and working with their local youth ministry. The few days we were there were the days I glimpsed the most beautiful of God’s landscapes I would come across on the Race. And the nights I experienced what it meant to feel the full magnitude of God’s form of electricity under the full brightness of the stars and a full moon unhindered by any electricity.
The camp was up in the mountains and without heat so I spent the night hugging a water bottle full of boiled water, as I had never been colder in my life. We built a concrete wall for one of their buildings and ate a piece of heaven at dinner in the form of Pam’s potpie.
Team Kairos laughed as we attempted to break branches for tamping the concrete and huddled around a campfire in all the clothes we could find as the sun went down for any bit of warmth we could muster. It was only a 3 day trip to Kosovo, but besides Greece this was by far my favorite country. So much joy was had with my team here.
Month 2.1: Albania
All squad month number one.
The plan for this month was for our whole 45 member squad to be working on a self-sustaining farm for Lighthouse International in Lehze, Albania. We spent the days moving hay bails, smashing concrete walls down, taking care of pigs, goats, and sheep, and living in closer community than we would have ever liked to.
We ate an egg, bread, and goat cheese every breakfast and plates of macaroni pasta and a soup every dinner. All meals accompanied by water with an odd taste – a very non-watery taste I will never be able to quite nail down as to what to compare it to.
To make things interesting my table decided to eat without hands one night – the soup got very interesting as we fed each other with spoons in our mouths. I loved it.
So we worked hard and played hard for a week and a half until we received a call to go to what was to become the most impactful next five weeks of my Race.
Month 2.2: Greece
A country that was never originally on our route became the one I most often talk about in coming home. I fell in love with a place and a group of individuals I never even knew I had a heart for.
It was the place I learned first hand about the serious situation our world is facing. The refugee crisis quickly turned from the articles on my Facebook newsfeed I scrolled over into a baby wrapped in an emergency blanket being held in my arms. The reality of the situation weighed heavily on me, as I wear my heart on my sleeve.
At the transition sites, we helped facilitate a place for the refugees to rest for a number of hours before being put on a bus to go up to a more long term camp further up the island.
As the squad learned to navigate what it meant for us to be working on the front lines of world history, we built friendships with the locals and other volunteers, deepened our relationships with each other, and went for polar bear swims in the Aegean Sea.
Shirletha introduced me to what is now my least favorite root, ginger, when I continually got sick and we became friendly with the local grocery store owner, Teo. Hills and cobblestone paths were climbed to explore the island castle with Nance the dog, who became our constant companion. Every layer of clothing in our packs was used to bundle up to give us the illusion of being warm.
So we were pretty pumped to be asked to remain on the island for the next month.
Month 3: Greece
Team Kairos was given the opportunity to stay for month 3 instead of going on to Macedonia as originally planned with our route. There was still a need for volunteers at the refugee transition site and we were more than willing to stay.
The majority of our squad left the island and moved up to Thessaloniki or further on to Macedonia, leaving mine and one other team behind to continue the work we had started. The transition site and Lesvos became more of a home than anywhere else on the Race ever became, considering we spent 5 weeks of our journey there.
We became seasoned volunteers at the site and helped usher in new volunteers. We did a couple shifts at the lighthouse and help refugees out of their boats and on to what was next for them. I shifted my time at the front gate and parking lot into creating order and finding treasures in my Peace Container that was stationed outside the gate.
Thanksgiving became one of my most favorite days on the Race because of the incredible people I had surrounding me. Also because those same people shoved me out the door to go play with Krystle, Kevin, and their dog Sadie when they knew I was about to be a Thanksgiving grump.
Life with the refugees had become such a norm for us, boarding the ferry and leaving the island felt so surreal to leave all of what we had completely immersed ourselves in. So Greece will always be my answer to the favorite month question.
Month 4: South Africa
All women’s month turned second all squad month as the men rejoined us a couple weeks in after they had spent some time doing their Manistry month in Botswana.
I spent my days painting backdrops and a time machine for the Christmas play, learning the Hannah Montana Hoedown Throwdown, and eating delicious cheesecake from Magnolia’s Cafe. I was able to create encouragram bags for all 35 women, drawing individual pictures on the front of brown bags so we could drop notes of encouragement to each other all month.
It was my first month tenting, which went much better than expected, and I woke up at 6 AM everyday for Run Club with Marissa. We helped the church’s charity organization put on Christmas parties in the more rural parts of the community. This consisted of us playing on bouncy houses and handing out plates full of sweets to those beautiful children.
Oh, and I still got to see the Rockefeller Christmas Tree by facetiming my sister at just the right time on their (our) annual trip to NYC day after Christmas, so I still made the family picture in front of it.
(2) Team Haya
Anna Kate, Lindsay, Nicole, Shrena, Me, Catherine, Stefany
My first team of all women. They are some of the strongest most beautiful women I have ever had the fortune of sharing life with. These were the 6 women who saw me at my most broken and vulnerable on the Race.
I was coming off of stepping down from leadership and finding out really what the Lord had planned for me to go through on the Race when I had nothing to focus on but Him.
These ladies loved me anyways in those times I was unlovable, and I consider myself so fortunate to have had 3 months with them. Jesus knew exactly who I needed when I needed them as I trudged through the hardest months of my Race with them by my side.
Month 5: Zimbabwe
At Month 4 debrief we switched teams around and so Team Haya headed to Glendale, Zimbabwe from Pretoria, South Africa. After a night spent at the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe (that’s right, it took us all night to get through), we met our host, Pastor Wonder, at the bus station in Zimbabwe’s capital. Pastor Wonder took us to not a city or a town, but the ‘growth point’ that is Glendale to work with is church, Bible Believing Grace Ministries (BBGM).
We stayed in a home on a very large, beautiful soy bean farm and discovered they had a washing machine followed by tears of joy. Each morning I woke up to flies attacking me, so this was also the month I slept with my bug net as a blanket over my face and thanked Jesus everyday I bought a fly swatter in Albania.
Our days were spent evangelizing and inviting people to our nightly services as we collected a large amount of red dust in our shoes walking around Glendale. Our nights were spent outside of Pastor Wonder’s house speaking into a crackling microphone that was passed back and forth between every sentence to our translator under one light bulb illuminating the number of plastic chairs gathered in the front yard.
We met the most incredibly community of women who loved Jesus and sang worship with a passion and joy unmatched by anyone I had ever heard. They welcomed us in as one of their own and showed me what trusting Jesus wholeheartedly really looked like.
Month 6: Lesotho
After a 30 hour travel day, bus breakdown and switch included, three teams head for the valley of Malealea to work with the ministry Africa 4 Jesus.
Laundry done down at the well, a monsoon that took out my tent, going to a resort for a friend from home’s wedding, teaching 7th graders without speaking the same language, peach trees for days, getting caught in a sandstorm, and the most breathtaking views of God’s creation I had ever seen.
In the midst of living in the valley of Malealea, I too was walking through a spiritual and emotional valley. But God granted us with hosts sent straight from His fleet. Pieter and Keila are two of the most influential people from my Race. They showed me endless grace and mercy, what it meant to laugh at yourself, and to just run through the mountains when you need to find rest.
This month I discovered I had a wool allergy and a ferocious love of peaches. Also, I probably was the most tan I will ever be in my life, so there is that small victory.
Month 7: Philippines
When most World Race squads are not even promised one all squad month, we were granted a third one, much to the dismay of most of the squad. That meant all 43 of us shared living, bathing, and eating space – and by month 7 most people could barely handle their team of 7 people to be around in constant community.
I loved this month. It was a month of basketball after too many months filled with soccer. It was a month of my team of 7 women cramming ourselves and all of our belongings into a tiny 275 sq ft apartment and sleeping on the floor. A month of 7eleven slurpees and high school classroom visits where our men were mistaken for celebrities and dance classes showing us our staggeringly embarrassing level of dance capabilities.
At the end of the month we held a festival in the middle of the town plaza for the entire city to come see skits and dances, and to hear testimonies and the Gospel. Catherine and I emceed the event and got to act like the fools we are.
It was a month of writing a book as a squad and being invited into homes for bible studies and then becoming the focus of it. This month had joy abundantly and trike rides and experiences of being the first Americans this city had ever hosted.
(3) Team: RTB Wolfpack
Shirletha, Bethany, Caitlin, Anna, Cassidy, Molly, Me
These women. They changed the game for me. We sweated through the last 4 months of the Race together, navigating what it meant to stay present but also begin the mental transition home. We are all so incredibly different from each other, but they showed me what it meant to be a family in light of those differences.
I could write pages about each of them and what they mean to me, but alas, this blog is already long winded.
So I will say thank you to them. Thank you for the endless laughs, the hard feedback, the relentless desire to push each other to find our true selves, the support when nothing but tears were communicated between us, and the patience that came when all of introverted selves just wanted to strangle each other.
Month 8: Malaysia
Unsung Heroes month. Every month I prayed my team would not be subject to this ministry, but every month after I prayed thankfully that we did.
We had just come out of month 7 debrief in Kuala Lumpur and switched teams for our third and final time. Unsung Heroes being our ministry meant we did not have any structure but the structure we put in place as we asked the Lord what He wanted us to do and where He wanted us to go that month.
So we remained in Kuala Lumpur, sent a whole lot of e-mails, met with a few prospective ministries, got fish pedicures, shopped in markets that seemed would never end, and performed dance numbers in laundry mats while our clothes dried.
Eventually we decided to travel a couple hours south to Melaka where we met Vanessa in a café, and were promptly invited to her church. Her church then gave us a home to stay in and invited us to their church camp on a resort island. To say these people loved well is an incredible understatement.
The Lord restored so much of my joy this month. We risked our lives and rollerbladed on cobblestone streets of downtown. Bethany, Molly, and I ran a Krispy Kreme 5k turned color run that I almost exploded with happiness during. We slept in more beds and trekked through more train and bus stations than any other month, but that is what Unsung Heroes was all about.
Month 9: Thailand
We were working with Eagle’s Rest Ministry in Phang Nga, a ministry that is focused on the care and restoration of burnt out pastors and missionaries. While we were there, however, they were not hosting anyone so we did an odd assortment of tasks throughout the month.
A lot of cleaning in various churches and around their home took place (#WindowMinistry). A few days we traveled down south to help paint boxes and organize them in the shape of a school for a fundraising event (#BoxMinistry). A couple afternoons we took pamphlets and walked around the town doing street ministry, where no one spoke English so it was a lot of smiling and hand waving.
My most favorite morning of the Race took place when our host took some of us to ride and bathe elephants. I was in heaven on top of that beautiful creature, and found redemption in that day after I had heard the news that my Uncle Jack had passed away back home a few days prior.
It was a rough month for me. But I’m thankful for the little moments Team Haya was able to have to learn more about each other and grow in feedback in major ways.
Month 10: Cambodia
Oh, Cambodia, with your streets full of tarantulas, crickets, silk worms, and grasshoppers to eat. With backyards of lemon grass fields stretching as far as the eye can see and giant spiders in the showers. Team Haya fought a lot of spiritual warfare this month while we slept on our mats on the floor in the living room of our host’s parent’s home along with the rest of the family to be awoken regularly by grandma singing prayers over us at 4 AM or a loud speaker down the street announcing a house opening.
What this month lacked of in sleep made up in restoration of purpose. Each morning we either did street ministry handing out pamphlets in Khmer, worked in Chanla’s shop alongside him and his wife, taught at the preschool with Chanla’s sister Toni, helped cook meals in the kitchen, or went to the lemon grass fields to help cut or plant it.
In the evenings we split off and taught English in various classes. Molly and I taught high school at 4:30 every night, and though I struggled along to find any kind of enjoyment in it, I eventually fell in love with the students – still don’t know if I taught them anything at all though.
This month I independently drove a scooter again, was given my Cambodian shoe keychain by a women who worked in a bakery, met short term missionaries from Texas who gave us armfuls of American snacks that almost made us weep at the sight of, worked out with Sean T every morning in the absurd heat and humidity, got a hair cut with kid scissors, and pushed a tuk tuk through traffic with Rosie and Cassidy when it ran out of gas.
It was one of the good ones.
Month 11: Vietnam
