It’s well known in the world race community that there are two kinds of months on the race; beach months and bush months. A beach month often consists of air conditioning, wifi, real beds to sleep on and sometimes an actual beach out your front door. A bush month is quite the opposite. Sometimes bush months involve bucket showers, squatty potties, tents, scorpions, termites and pig farms. My month in Laos definitely qualifies as a bush month. We tented on a pig farm doing construction jobs and spending time with the Laos family who lived there. And while it certainly wasn’t glamorous, it was glorious. I found myself thankful for things that I often overlook during day to day life, like the fact that my body is healthy enough to dig trenches for 8 hours a day in the sweltering heat or that my blistered hands started to form callouses to protect themselves from our wooden tool handles.
It was a different month than most on my race but one of my favorites in so many ways. I have a newfound love of my body and the work it can do; a love for putting in hard hours to see the end result; a love for Laos and it’s beautiful people.
The race has taught me a lot of things so far. But one of the biggest things it has taught me is that your circumstances don’t define your joy. When I am sleeping in a tent on a termite hill I can find joy in the fact that for once I have my own space to sleep in. When my teammates have hard messy conversations I can find joy in knowing that we have those conversations because we love each other enough to be honest and real. Joy comes from Jesus and He never changes so my joy doesn’t have to either. Glory and joy are things much greater than glamour.
Below is a video made by my squadmate and teammate for the month Brittany Gonzales about our time in Laos.
*FUNDRAISING UPDATE: I am only $3,000 away from being fully funded! Woohoo!! I hope with your generous support to have this all in by June 30th! If you can donate even $10 just click the support link in my sidebar! Even a little makes a big difference. 🙂
