My life changed during my time on the race. I knew it would, but had a difficult time pinpointing how until recently.
My parents recently remodeled their basement and I did my part to help by priming and painting. While I was working away at a bookcase one night, I was reminded of last January when I was in Thailand, also covered in paint.
Pastor Sam, our contact in Nakorn Phanom, led a church that was held in his home. He asked us to paint the room where church took place, so one trip to the hardware store later we went to work. Our goofy translator kept adding water to the paint as we worked to try to make it go further (and no, it was not a water-based paint). It was definitely a far cry from professional standard, but at the end of the day all we could do was laugh.
As I painted away in my parents’ basement in Estes Park, Colorado, I kept getting flashes of moments from around the world this last year.
Dan and I painting the gate outside Gilgal High School and Ephraim Children’s Home in Kenya while the neighborhood children watched (and sometimes interfered).
Celebrating Christmas on an island in Nicaragua with Suyen, a beautiful little girl who saved her meager Christmas treats to take home to her brothers and sisters.
Hours spent riding on the back of motos in Vietnam and eating street food.
Late nights with my teams worshipping, praying, and enjoying the community God placed around me.
I couldn’t help it. My eyes started filling with tears as I began to understand the new way I saw the world. I find myself contrasting my life here and now with moments from the race. Contrasting how painting in America vastly differs from painting in Thailand. Contrasting the decadence of Christmas at home with my family with the simple yet joyful celebration at a Nicaraguan orphanage. Contrasting my everyday life now with my everyday life then.
I often find myself discontent with going through the motions of everyday life at home. While painting away at that bookcase, I thought to myself, “Is this how its always going to be from now on?”
Am I always going to be thinking about getting up at sunrise to cook porridge over a charcoal brassier in Malawi every time I turn the oven on in America?
Will I always remember the ordeal of public transit in Tanzania when I get into my car to drive to work?
Am I going to continue to be thankful when I step into a hot shower when I remember freezing cold bucket baths in Kenya?
I hope so, I genuinely and truly hope that I never stop receiving those flashes of memories that remind me of such precious people and places and experiences from all around the world.
Comparing isn’t bad. If anything, it has given me a deeper understanding and thankfulness for the World Race and that it really, truly, has wrecked me for the ordinary. It is as if I have two filters through which I now view the world. The first filter is the one I grew up with; where hot water and refrigerators are found in every home and you’re weird if you don’t have a car. The second filter is the one I experienced over the course of the last year. It the one where bathing involves hauling water from the village well, where walking is the normal mode of transportation, and internet is rare.
It is impossible for me to join these two filters. Nor do I want to.
