i am writing a blog.
this has always been a particularly challenging part of the world race for me.
i love reading other’s blogs. i love when someone’s writing can take you by the hand and take you the places they have been. when words become music. fluid. drawing you into someone else’s world with a pen (or in this case a keyboard).
i have never been a good writer. you can ask any teacher that has ever read one of the many research papers i have written. i imagine they had to consume multiple cups of coffee and perhaps, stuff themselves with chocolate just to get through the first page. this is something i have come to terms with. i think that my scattered brain and perhaps a mild case of attention deficit disorder are to blame and that is just how God created me. i write only when i am asked to. however, i have epically failed at that. i was asked when coming on the race to write blogs every month, but sometimes i feel it is easier to just write a short post on facebook about what country i am in and what my ministry is for the month. according to my mother and a few friends this is not enough. so…
i am writing a blog.
the last blog i posted was in the Philippines. whoops. that was exactly 68 days ago, which means i have done A LOT more than i could possibly cram into one blog.
so this is the shorter and much sweeter version of what i have been doing the past couple of months.
i left the philippines and journeyed across the south china sea to the people’s republic of china. hong kong to be exact. initially, i was not excited about being in china. mostly because i had loved the philippines, but the lack of freedom was also not appealing. however, my views on being in hong kong changed quick, fast, and in a hurry. actually they changed as soon as i walked into the nicest living conditions i have had on the race. my entire team had not only 2 apartments for 6 people, but we also each had our own room. LUXURY! my room included a mirror, down comforter, closet, and feather pillows. we even had a couch, which is practically unheard of on the race. i couldn’t have asked for anything more fantastic. these accommodations were provided by the organization we were working with for the month called Crossroads Global Distribution. Crossroads is an amazing organization that connects global resources to global needs. for example, as soon as they heard about the recent earthquakes in japan they organized immediate relief, which is ongoing. during my time at Crossroads, when i wasn’t basking in my glorious bed, i worked with a sector of the organization called Global Handicrafts. Global Handicrafts was started in an attempt to provide for the needs of craft makers in the third world by providing them with a place to sell their goods in a fair trade environment. i worked as a shop hand, doing inventory and also in sales. i learned a lot during my time working there. the community that runs Crossroads was incredibly warm and inviting, providing us a new “family” for the month. hong kong is an amazing multicultural city. i would definitely love to travel back there someday.
my team sightseeing in hong kong. this describes us well. except i don’t have a head.
photo credits: http://www.juliettesteele.theworldrace.org
my wonderful month in hong kong had to close, so i traveled with my team on an overnight train to beijing to meet the rest of my squad. beijing was a lot of fun. we got to experience “real” chinese culture there. the great wall of china. biking around tien men square. the forbidden city. the silk market. and a lot of rice (speaking of rice, i DO NOT enjoy most asian food. it has been quite a challenge).
representing ZCA on the great wall of china.
soon our time of adventure in beijing ended and we were on a plane to bangkok, thailand. after a couple days waiting for the floods in thailand to go down we hopped on a bus and spent the night traveling to phuket. phuket is an island where many westerners vacation. when we arrived at the bus station our contact mark loaded our packs and drove us to our new home. SHE. Self. Help. Empowerment. SHE is an organization that provides a way for women that have been in the sex industry to learn a new trade (english, tourism, and jewelry making) so that they will hopefully be able to provide for their families through those trades. april was “womanistry” for my squad, which basically means the males and females on my squad are split up to pursue different ministries. so i lived with 21 females at the SHE base all month. the 21 women were then split into two teams. our days were split between manual labor and going into the bars to talk to the women. every other day my team would drive about 30 minutes away to the other side of the island to a piece of land where SHE is building a new base. our job was to clear the land. weed eating. raking. shoveling gravel. a lot of fun new things i have never experienced before. truthfully, i am not a great weed eater. some think it is easy, but not when you are weed eating 4 foot “weeds/trees” on a couple acres of land. i continuously prayed for a big green tractor to drive up the road. it never happened. luckily, i got a pretty good base tan while working on the land. it was all worth it. don’t worry i used sun screen a couple times. the days that we weren’t clearing the land we would spend our days prayer walking in the city and around the bars, begging God to break the chains of injustice that occur there nightly. every night when we got home at 8pm we would have a time of worship to prepare for the night ahead. our nights involved time in patong (the beach where the bars are located). while in patong i spent a lot of time interceding for the prostitutes and our teams that were ministering to them every night. ministering in this case doesn’t necessarily mean sharing the gospel, more like providing them a way to get in touch with SHE so they will have the opportunity to teach them a trade and share the gospel at the same time. my month in thailand was overwhelming and tiring, but fun and fascinating at the same time.
team 2 celebrating our last day clearing the land.
fun facts about my time in thailand.
i thai boxed my team leader as a form of feedback on phi phi island. (i won)
i had the opportunity to spend a day off at a beautiful pool by a beach, but got sunburned after only a couple hours. oops.
i celebrated the thai new year with a water gun.
i spent a lot of time at 7/11 in hopes of avoiding asian food.
i was a finance leader for my team for the month.
i got to celebrate 3 of my best friends birthdays.
i prayed over a giant buddha on a hill that overlooked some of God’s most beautiful creation.
i got to minister in the bars during the biggest water fight in the world. literally.
i got to see beautiful women takes steps out of prostitution. a gift from God.
after my thai boxing victory.
thailand, month 10, has come and gone. on the 28th i traveled from thailand to malaysia on yet another over night bus. then rode in a minibus for a few hours to a ferry that took us to meet our squad (our men that we hadn’t seen all month) on an island in malaysia called penang. we spent two nights in penang waiting for our transportation to our ministry location for the month. during that time, i got to eat at a chili’s while watching the royal wedding. VERY exciting. and eat the most delicious naan i had ever had.
soon i was out of a budget hotel and on a super comfy bus to my latest local. kuala lumpur. the capital city of malaysia. i am incredibly excited to be here in my LAST MONTH on the race. i can’t believe month 11 is here. seriously, i thought it would never come to an end. i definitely have mixed emotions. leaving my current family to go back to my original family. weird. unlike anything i have experienced before. but it hasn’t ended yet, and i fully intend to finish well. this month my ministry includes teaching english at bermese refugee schools, crusades in a village outside the city, homeless outreach, prostitute outreach, and working in two restaurants. the next three weeks should be busy, but amazing. please pray for our squad’s safety this month, clarity for me in decisions about my future post race, and that i will finish well or at least finish in a way that only brings glory to God.
