For the month of April, we were in Colombia, though not the typical Colombia I foresaw myself going to several months ago. My team and I were on the beautiful island of San Andres, partnering with a church and joining them in what they’e been doing.
When we first arrived and saw the many different shades of blue in the ocean, we stared in awe. How on earth could we be spending the month in paradise?
You see, World Race life is kinda like hitch-hiking life. Life is lived out of a backpack that has a limited selection of clothes that may or may not have been washed for a month. Whatever is placed before you, you eat, even if you haven’t a clue what it is. Often times a drink can be passed through 4 people before making its way to you and you drink it anyway. 30 plus hours on a bus is normal, as is being constantly surrounded by other humans. When feeling exhausted on travel days, you learn to improvise and sometimes that means propping your pack up against a random wall and sleeping. Toilets that flush are miraculous and the terms, clean, usable and presentable have become relative. Warm showers are as rare as good wifi and napkins. If you’ve had the privilege of seeing a mirror at all in a day, you’re winning at life. Funky tan lines and oversized clothes are just a part of life, along with being stared at constantly by locals. All these things just become normal.
So you can imagine our utter surprise when we arrived on the vacation destination of San Andres.
But despite standing out a little(let’s be real, we seem to stand out wherever we go), our connection with San Andres was excellent. We mostly worked with the youth, a group of around 10 teenagers who had a heart for telling others about who Jesus is. We visited hospital and prayed with the sick. We did street dramas and walked around offering free hugs.
