11 times I laughed the hardest on the race.
DISCLAIMER: There were SO many. It was so hard to choose one from each country. The race has been nothing but laughter the whole way through. These 11 are the times that stood out to me.
India:
One evening in India, we arrived at a small Indian home for ministry just like always. We came in, greeted everyone, and sat down. There was a small TV in the background playing Bollywood music. They served us Thumbs Up, the Indian version of Coca Cola, and asked us to dance. I stood up confidently, did a little diddy, but needed support. Luke stood up with me. The room was so crowded we had maybe two feet of dancing room each. The limited room left us with no choice but to break out our weirdest middle school upper body only dance moves, accompanied by anything that seemed funny in the moment. We balanced cookies on our face, danced with a cup suctioned to our mouth and got a good laugh out of everyone. While Kyle videotaped, our other teammates sat behind us thinking what is happening. Things escalated. Two ladies of the home brought us more Thumbs Up, Kyle stood up to dance with us, people crowded the door and I spilled Thumbs Up on the ground mid dance move. We were all dying laughing thinking, how did we get here. The ladies were keeled over laughing, as were the three of us dancers. Shortly after, it was my turn to preach at the church down the street. Thankfully the Lord can still speak to a giggly crowd. I laughed so hard that night.
Nepal:
Nepal was the month that Luke and Kyle really got into the habit of talking in a British accent. It made everything they said ten times funnier. One evening as a team we went to the Lazy Gringo, a Mexican restaurant in Kathmandu, for dInner. That night at dinner they had us rolling. I don’t remember the exact dialogue, but it was all hilarious. Our whole team was hyper. My quote wall for our team exploded that night. Something about Kyle pretending the pitcher on the table was heavy and Katie refusing to order something because the word veggie had one “g” in it. It was a good night.
Thailand:
I couldn’t decide between two moments in Thailand so I will share them both.
1. We lived in a remote village in Thailand, thirty minutes from any paved road. We each taught different English classes so our schedules varied within the day. To pass the time in between classes and explore the surrounding areas, Bekah and I would go on walks. We would walk out of the village to where the trees opened up, dip our feet in the small river near the paved road and walk back. One time after a long night of rain, the road was caked with thick mud. There were some points where it was maybe a foot thick. It was so hot that day I decided to sit down in the water when we reached the river. On our way back I trudged through the mud in the middle of the road enjoying every squish. Every so often I would turn and wait for Bekah, who was carefully tiptoeing around the mud puddles (a perfect representation of our personalities). There was one moment I was so engaged in the story I was telling her, I forgot to turn back and check. I walked on talking and talking, feeling very animated and even laughing to myself a couple of times. When I finally remembered to look back, I saw Bekah a hundred yards back struggling to retrieve her shoe that had been swallowed by the mud. She was balancing on one foot trying to reach down and grab it, but also still trying to listen to me. I ran back to help laughing so hard at my obliviousness and made some hyperbolic joke about how if I would have gone any further, I would have turned and found her neck deep in the mud. Bekah thought that was hilarious and absolutely lost it. She doubled over in hysteria and instantly peed her pants. Watching this happen so fast, I also dropped to my knees laughing and instantly peed my pants as well. We both stood back up trying to catch our breath. We checked our watches, lunch was in thirty minutes. What do we do. Do we have time to walk back to the river to wash our pants? Probably not. We stood there for a minute thinking about how we would get out of this mess, literally. We decided we needed to head back to the village. We made a stop at a bible school a mile away from the village and ran to the small wash house. We filled two buckets and took them around the back so no one would see. We took turns pouring them on each other. It was so hard to pour water on each other and not pee our pants again from laughing at this whole situation. We were going to be late to lunch. We ran back, laughing the entire way. We each grabbed a towel, wrapped it around our waists and joined the rest of our team for lunch.
2. At the end of the month, we went on a two day adventure to Khao Sok National Park. At the end of our bout tour, we got to kayak and swim in the lake by our lunch spot. I wanted to swim across the lake and back so Kyle jumped in a kayak and kayaked alongside me. I got tired on the way back and climbed in the back of his kayak. When we neared our lunch spot, I decided to roll out and finish the swim. When I rolled out my shorts got stuck on a knot on the side of the kayak. My limbs and face submerged, but my hips remained attached to the side of the kayak. The force of my roll caused the kayak to jerk and tip. The next events happened so fast. I pulled my head above water very confused and watched the kayak tip so far I was sure that it would flip. As the kayak tipped Kyle yelled back at me, “Kim, we dyin’!!” I grabbed my shorts frantically trying to free myself and save Kyle from death apparently (he has been known to be dramatic). Somehow the kayak did not tip. I was left with a bruise from where my shorts cut off circulation in my thigh from hanging off of the side of the kayak.
Cambodia:
Cambodia was a difficult month. We were dealing with things as a team, ministry was confusing, the climate was hot and the Lord was convicting me of things left and right. There was one day I walked downstairs into Katie’s room and collapsed on her bed. The race is amazing, but there are frequent moments when you feel utterly depleted. After I collapsed, Katie started to giggle. It was a combination of my dramatic entry and the month we were having. The wonderful thing about my friendship with Katie is that our giggles build on each other. One of us will start to giggle at something small and the other will pick up on it. Giggles combine into laughs and the laughs build until both of us are doubled over. This happened right there in that moment. If there is one thing I have learned on the race it is that sometimes all you can do is laugh. And it is usually needed. It refreshes your soul. We laughed and laughed. I gained some abs that morning.
Vietnam:
We traveled by train to our ministry site in Vietnam. It was a 16 hour sleeper train. The hallway was just tall enough for the guys to walk through and just wide enough for one person to stand perpendicular to the door. Down the hallway were sliding doors that opened up to compartments of six beds, three bunk beds on each side. The beds were packed in the compartments efficiently, leaving little room for our bags. We stuffed our bags on the shelf above the door, underneath the beds, and on the floor near the door. I had a top bunk. When I laid down there was about a foot of space separating my face from the ceiling. I took a moment and thanked God that I was not claustrophobic. We boarded the train at night. I slept a good eight hours enjoying the vibration of the train. I woke up, walked to the bathroom, looked for breakfast and stood in the tiny hallway of the train. After I walked around for a minute and helped some other squad mates order breakfast, I realized there was nothing really to do and nowhere really to go. I climbed back in my bunk waiting for the breakfast I ordered and looked across at Jo. We had just switched teams, so my new teammates were my train compartment-mates (and a Vietnamese family on the bottom bunk). Jo was on the other top bunk across from me. We talked for a while about how hilarious this train was and Jo took it to the next level. She started a whole monologue of how crazy world race life is. It went something like this, “This is hilarious. We have nothing to do but lay here for 9 more hours. There is nowhere to go. There is no room. I just spent the night with a Vietnamese family. I don’t know where I am going. I don’t know where I am going to to sleep tonight. Wow. This is the craziest life. We can’t go anywhere. All we can do is lay here for 16 hours. Wow.” She had me rolling. If you could hear her voice it would have you rolling too. She wasn’t at all complaining, but just hilariously recounting facts of world race life that are never the case in “normal life.” She was laying face up, talking to the ceiling, cracking me up. Watching her eat breakfast from a tray on the top bunk sealed the deal on this being one of the times I laughed the hardest. I thought, this life is so crazy, and I absolutely love it.
Ethiopia:
Two from Ethiopia as well:
1. One moment was playing football in the front yard of our house on the compound with Matt and Brad. Matt would hike the ball to Brad and then take off running. He out ran me every time, but I won the game in intimidation for sure. Matt would yell, “Hit the curve! Hit the curve!” The front yard curved into a path that led to the soccer field. To the left of the curve was a huge cement foundation where Hopethiopia was building a new center for people with disabilities. On the right of the curve was a stone block where garbage was burned. The curve was quite a dangerous path to be running down while staring at a flying football. I would die laughing trying so hard to keep up with Matt, hearing him yell “Hit the curve” and then hearing Brad reply, “I am not going to hit the curve Matt!”
2. The second time was the night of Juliana’s birthday. Her team planned a 90s birthday party for her and invited everyone to dress up like the 90s. There was also a lip sync battle sign up sheet. I found Bekah after breakfast and said, “We doin’ this?” She replied, “What song?” I replied with one word. “Grillz” To my dismay, she came to me later and told me that it probably wouldn’t be wise because she was actually very very sick. She had been stuck in bed for a week and wasn’t feeling better. I was sad but glad she was taking the time to rest. However, an hour before the party she came into my room and said, “You still wanna do this Kim?”
We made costumes and choreographed a short dance in thirty minutes. We had bling necklaces, backwards hats, borrowed clothes, aluminum grillz and swag. That night we won the spirit award for our Grillz performance. I think what knocked us from first place was the fact that our laughter caused our grillz to almost to fall out making it impossible to actually lip sync. You win some you lose some.
Rwanda:
There was one evening at our debrief in Rwanda when a group of us really wanted ice cream. There was a small grocery store less than a mile away, so a handful of us walked there at about 8pm. I was standing outside with Gabbie and a few others, eating my ice cream snack and opening a a bag of Doritos when it started to sprinkle. Gabbie and I decided to start walking back. The light sprinkle turned into a heavy rain in a couple of minuets. We picked up our pace and I put my open bag of Doritos in my shirt for protection. In no time at all, the heavy rain turned into torrential down pour. As we got further away from the main street, the road became pitch black. We could hardly see the next step in front of us as we ran home. All of a sudden the biggest flash of lightening flashed above us followed by the loudest thunderclap. Gabbie screamed and I grabbed her arm. We both slipped in the mud and laughed even harder. At that point, I bent down and peed my pants (a common occurrence for me apparently). It didn’t matter, I was drenched. Gabbie yelled at me through laughter, “Come on Kim!” I ran with one arm hooked onto Gabbie, and the other protecting my open bag of Doritos under my shirt. We stumbled into the safety of our hotel completely drenched.
Bolivia:
Every month we fill out something called journey markers. Journey markers are a couple of questions each week that ask us to reflect on our journey and share what God has done in our hearts with leadership. The famous question at the end of every month is: How well are you entering into the process of Abandonment (leaving behind your comfort to create space for God to do something new)?
We had been the the village for a week and had countless bug bites. Jo got the worst of it. One day she pulled up her pant leg and all of our jaws dropped. They got us through our mosquito nets, through the limited bug repellent we had and even through our jeans. Jo was so overcome with the itchiness of it all that she resigned to just scratching. This was before we found other remedies such as lemon juice or alcohol to ease the itch. We were talking through that journey marker question and Jo responded saying, “This month I have abandoned the top layer of my skin.”
We all died of laughter. I really appreciated our team that month. We were able to find joy and laugh even in the midst of hard things. The joy of the Lord was our strength!
Peru:
Our last day in Peru we celebrated Taylor’s birthday. We invited all of our friends from church over to our house for cake and games. We decided to play fish bowl. Fish bowl is a game that combines catchphrase, charades and taboo into one. Each member writes three words on a piece of paper and you put them all in hat. You have 30 seconds to describe the word, act it out or give a one word clue depending on what round you are in. We played for hours. As we played the noise level grew and grew. We laughed the most during the act it out round. People were getting so into it. They stood up, shouted, argued, and laughed harder and harder. It was such an amazing end to a wonderful month of community. My cheeks hurt so bad by the end of the night from smiling and laughing. It was one of my favorite nights of the race.
Ecuador:
In Ecuador we stayed with a wonderful family from New Jersey. Bob and Lori Leek welcomed us into their family in the best ways. We heard the story of how they met from Lori over lunch when it was just us girls, but she left the engagement story for Bob to tell. We found out later why. Bob told us his side of the story that night at dinner and we could barely listen we were laughing so hard. Bob is a retired marine who worked in law enforcement for 25 years. He spent many of those years working in prisons. He is a tough guy who passionately loves the Lord. He shared with us however, that when it came to asking Lori to marry him, he was scared to death. He had no idea what to do. He knew the night he wanted to do it, he had the ring with him over at her house, but he had no idea how to ask. He said all he could think to do was put it in the fridge. We stopped him at this point and said, “the fridge?!” He said “Yeah, next to he iced tea!” We died laughing. The fridge?! He continued to explain that when Lori sat down for dinner he asked her, “Hey honey, can you grab me a glass of iced tea?” He waited at the table for her to realize. Lori said at first she didn’t see it and went back into the fridge a second time after thinking for a moment. She grabbed the little black box and brought it to him asking him is this was a joke. It wasn’t at all. He got down on one knee and asked her right there. She cried. Lori said that it was so incredibly “Bob” of him to do that, that it filled her heart. Bob said if anyone proposes to us in that way we have his permission to look at him and say, “try again.” He is the most loving man. We love the Leeks so much! That was a great night.
Colombia:
We live and work at an orphanage in Colombia. We hang out with the kids all day, help serve them food, and on occasion help them with homework. One day the tutor on the boys floor, Rosita, asked us to help Daison with his math homework. We had to help him make 3D shapes. We got this, ninth grade math wasn’t too long ago right? Rosita tried to explain it to us, but we didn’t quite understand with what little Spanish we understood. Somehow we figured out that we needed to make 10 different 3D shapes. We jumped right into it maybe a little too confidently. Our first couple were a sticky, gluey mess. The next few were maybe way harder than they should have been. We googled pictures, talked it out and drew out templates. All of a sudden, Tate got on a roll. She made a triangular prism, a cylinder and a pentagonal prism in a matter of minutes. Katie and I stopped what we were doing, amazed at the sudden emergence of her talent. As we continued to build, our shapes improved. The first few were deformed and unproportional. The last few were cut evenly and held together nicely with tape. In the middle of measuring interior angles for my hexagonal prism, something didn’t add up. I checked my math and noticed I made a small error. I set the protractor down and took a break. While doing so, I saw that Tate was correcting her previously deformed rectangular prism and Katie was battling a very sticky piece of tape caught on her finger. I also noticed that the boys were all of a sudden very quiet. I turned around to find Daison and Leider behind us on the ground folding origami swans without trouble. All three of us stopped constructing and laughed for ten minutes straight.
