In some ways, it feels like yesterday….
It was a little less than 2 weeks before I left for the Race and I was sitting on my couch when an idea came to me. I was inspired to write a blog called “11 Things To Remember With 11 Days To Go”, and it would include a list of 11 things that I had learned from someone else’s Race. That “someone else” was Emily Tuttle: the person whose blogs my friend Tyler and I had stumbled across, which ultimately inspired both of us to apply for our own World Race experiences. At the time, she was a person I barely knew and the life she lived on her Race was something I admired; it was heroic and inspiring.
It’s so funny how God works. In almost 11 months’ time, Emily and I have become close friends. She has been my lifeline to sanity when I knew that no one else in my life could possibly understand what I was feeling or experiencing. I have walked some of the same roads that she walked and spent time with people who she spent time with. 10 months and 17(ish) days later, my World Race experience has nearly come to a close. In just 11 days, I will be boarding a plane that will take me (along with my squad) to Seoul, South Korea, and from Seoul to Los Angeles, California. From there, I will board a plane headed for Louisville, Kentucky, and for about 11 hours, (with layovers) I will be completely alone. This will be the first time I’ll have been alone for almost a year. I won’t have my squadmates sitting next to me or swinging in the hammock 5 feet from my own. I won’t have to put in my headphones and play music to pretend that no one is around. Yes, there will be people everywhere, but compared to the life of constant community that I’ve lived in for the past year, it will be the most solitary moment I have experienced since leaving America in July 2012. And while the thought of this is exciting and exhilarating, it is also very overwhelming. These people have been my family for almost a year. They have helped me to grow in my identity in Christ. They have answered countless questions about life and God and everything under the sun.
To be honest, every fiber of my being knows that it is time to go home. I need to establish roots again… At least for a while. I literally dream every night of sleeping in my bed…in my home…with air conditioning and my dog. But I’m not sure what going home is going to look like. I fear that people will think that I haven’t changed or grown at all. I fear that people will think I’ve changed too much. I fear that I will forget everything that I’ve learned over the past 11 months. And for that reason, I have decided to write another “11 Things To Remember With 11 Days To Go” blog. This time, it is 11 lessons I’ve learned from my own Race… The most important lesson I learned from each country I was in. I pray that this blog will speak to your lives (if there’s anyone who’s still actually reading this LONG blog). But if nothing else, I pray that I will be able to look back to this blog when the World Race seems to be one giant blur. I pray that it will remind me who I am now, what I learned, and what I hope to become.
1. Ireland: My God LOVES to make His children smile
If you have read my blogs from Ireland, I think it’s probably quite obvious that I was crazy about Galway city. I could not believe that of all of the cities my team could have been placed in, we had the opportunity to spend a month in the city I had dreamt of visiting since the first time I watched my very favorite movie, “P.S. I Love You”. I was in heaven. I loved the people, the food, the ministries, even the fact that it rained every day. Many of you know that it was while I was in Ireland that God chose to take my best friend, Kelli, home to Heaven. At first I was so angry. I was angry that I couldn’t be there. I was angry that it had to happen at all. But eventually, I realized that God had good purpose in it. He had me in a place I loved so that the pain would be more bearable. He has used her legacy to start a practice of people doing random acts of kindness in her name. And though it still breaks my heart to think that she won’t be greeting me at the airport in 13 days, I know that God will continue to bring happiness, joy, and love through her memory and through the 24 years of life that she lived.
2. Ukraine: God has given us the power to overcome darkness with light
“In order for our Light to shine brighter, the darkness must be darker”. This was what we were told by our ministry contacts in Ukraine. It was the first country where I had ever experienced spiritual warfare, but definitely not the last. I learned in our month there that God has truly already won the battle against darkness, we are just required to walk in that victory. Since Ukraine, I have experienced spiritual warfare in Romania, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, India, and even here in Cambodia. I know that there is spiritual warfare in America, and I am sure that because I have experienced it here, it will be even more evident when I go home. But I now know that anyone who has the Holy Spirit inside them has the ability to overcome. This is a power I want to walk in for the rest of my life and to enable others to walk in, as well.
3. Moldova: What it looks like to have a true servant’s heart
We made many wonderful friends in Moldova, many of whom served in the church. They all played a part in teaching me about being a joyful servant. More than any other, though, was a man named Serge. Serge was an older man who worked as the janitor/groundskeeper of the church. Within the first week, Serge took on the role of our father for the month. He wouldn’t let us carry things if they were too heavy. He got medicine for us when one of us was sick. He always made sure that we were taking plenty of water breaks. It didn’t matter that he only knew a few words in English. His love for us, his job, and the Lord was evident. Throughout our month, we saw Serge work harder than anyone else, but we never saw him without a smile on his face. When the month came to a close, it was Serge who made me cry before anyone could even translate what he was saying. He taught me what a blessing it is to be a servant, and how much serving others can affect them and be a reflection of God.
4. Kenya: All people speak the language of love
In Kenya, we took the opportunity to create a ministry of our own during our time off from our required ministry. We got to spend the month building relationships with the people who owned shops in the market and outside of a coffee shop. We were able to show God’s love to people who had only ever known foreigners as people who were looking to bargain with them. We sat down and had a Coke with them, went to church with them, drank tea and ate breakfast with them, listened to them, shared with them, and prayed with them. It was such a blessing to see the relationships that were formed with those people, and the people who met Jesus through those relationships. It taught me that sometimes, the people we cross paths with every day could be aching to be seen. If we take the time to talk to people and invest in them without agenda, to show them that we love and care about them, they will be likely to want to know why we love them. And that is where true ministry can begin.
5. Tanzania: We all have a message from God that is uniquely our own. It is our job to open our mouths and speak
Tanzania was the first country where I preached in front of a church. Before that, I had only ever shared the Gospel or shared a word of encouragement with people when visiting their homes. In the days and hours leading up to giving my first message, I was a bundle of nerves. I wasn’t sure if I would sound silly or if my message wouldn’t make sense. But when I went up to preach, God gave me such an overwhelming sense of peace. He made it clear that the message He had given me was one that I needed to share. Since then, I have given messages and shared my testimony more times than I can count. Every time that I did, God gave me the words to speak, the courage to share, and the peace to know that it was within His will. I truly believe that every person has a unique message. It is our job to share it in whatever way God wills. It may be through sharing at a women’s retreat or small group Bible study. It may be through teaching a Sunday school class or camp counseling. It may be through pastoring a small congregation or a congregation of thousands. It may be abroad or it may be next door. It is our responsibility and our privilege to ask God what our message is and how He would have us share it.
6. Mozambique: When you can’t see God’s Hand in something, trust His Heart
Mozambique was personally one of my most challenging months. We had completed 5 months of the Race, but there were still 6 more to go. For whatever reason, things kept happening that kept us from being able to do ministry, so we spent much of the month just sitting and sweating. It was also December, so we couldn’t help feeling that if we weren’t able to do ministry, we might as well be home for the holidays. Eventually, I had to get my mind back in the right place. I decided to trust that God was moving through us despite the way things appeared through my eyes. I’ve realized that there are many times in life when we don’t understand what God’s purpose is, but that’s what makes Him God. If we were able to completely understand Him and His ways, He wouldn’t be extraordinary. So, this is a reminder to myself to always trust His heart, even through deaths, crazy African baby showers, and everything in between.
7. Nepal: My heart can be completely captivated
I’ll be honest. Before the Race, I was pretty confident that God was going to captivate my heart for Africa. I had heard and read so many stories of people who had hardly stepped foot on African soil and couldn’t imagine ever going home again. I was so excited to find out what country it would be that would capture my heart. Kenya? Tanzania? Mozambique? But once those 3 months were complete, I could safely say that God had not captivated my heart for any of them. To be fair, my team was given a pretty tough hand when it came to Africa. We spent much of our time dealing with sickness and disappointment. I fell in love with certain people, with the beauty of each country, the children, and some of our ministry… But my heart was not set to return there. I was disappointed. I had completed over half of my Race, and still had not fallen head over heels in love with any one place. I began telling myself that maybe God wouldn’t break my heart for anywhere; that maybe my heart was unable to be captivated. And then came Nepal. It was very, very cold. It was quite primitive. The city was crowded and busy. And almost no one spoke English. It made no sense why I should love this place so much. But I did. I spent the entire month feeling like my heart was flying. I had never been so cold in my life, but I couldn’t stop smiling. I fell truly, madly, deeply in love with everything about Nepal. I even considered stopping my Race right there and staying in the tiny, remote village 8 hours south of Kathmandu where we did ministry for the month. While I’m glad I decided to complete my Race, I learned that God wants His children to love what He loves. But we don’t individually have the capacity to love as God loves. Not everyone can have a heart for Africa. Some people are made to fall in love with little places without names, where only 0.4% of the population is Christian. And while it may not be the most exotic or luxurious location, I know that God has given it to me for a reason. In the words of the Terminator: “I’ll be back.”
8. India: Say “Yes and Amen”
There were many things during our month in India that my team and I did not agree with. We struggled with how church services were conducted. We struggled with feeling more like circus attractions than volunteers or missionaries. We struggled with how our messages and sermons were being translated to the people. All of these struggles almost destroyed our month altogether. Our saving grace was the pastor and his family who we were working alongside. Despite their quirks and cultural differences, they loved us well. I realized that there will be things in churches and in life in general that I won’t completely agree with, but everyone is in their own process of becoming like Christ. So, I learned that in those times, the healthiest and most loving thing I can do is say “Yes and Amen” to where they are in their process. Even if it costs me a few headaches along the way.
9. Thailand: If at first you don’t succeed…Try, try again
If you have read my “God’s Wingman” blog, you will know that our contact during this month asked us to find one person who we can connect with. Our job was to find that person and then focus on praying for and building a relationship with them. Well, as you may also know from that blog, I was not so successful in this task. Still, that didn’t keep me from trying. I can’t say that God honored my efforts in the way that I would have expected, but I believe that He honored them in an even better way. His way. I learned that I can’t always be the one reaping, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still sow into the harvest.
10. Malaysia: Operate out of your giftings
Many Christians believe different things about spiritual gifts. Some believe that they no longer exist. Some believe they belong to only a lucky few. Some believe that if you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, you have access to them all. I wasn’t sure where I stood in this debate for a long time. (And I’m not looking to have a spiritual debate via this blog.) But I stand more along the lines of believing that God places a certain gift inside each of us specifically for His purposes (based upon 1 Corinthians 12:7-11). At the end of this month, our contact offered to pray with each of us individually. The first few of my teammates who met with him asked him to pray for them to have specific giftings. One asked for the gift of tongues, and after some time spent in prayer, she received the gift. One asked for giftings in both tongues and dream interpretation, and she received both. I could tell that some powerful things were happening during this man’s prayers. I was tempted to ask him to pray with me for a specific gift, but wasn’t sure where I stood with all of that. Instead, I just asked for him to pray with me about my future. But God knows better. In the 10 minutes our contact spent praying for me, he used one specific word at least 6 different times. The word that he used was the gift that I had been so tempted to ask for. I know that it was God saying that that gifting is and has already been inside of me. I was able to see that God answers prayers without them ever having to be vocalized. I also realized that He desires for us to operate out of the full capacity that He has given us through the Holy Spirit. We must remember to be open to Him revealing new gifts or talents within us to be used for His glory.
11. Cambodia: Patience is a beautiful thing… But it only comes through trial
I was sure that month 11 was going to be a breeze! I just knew that I was going to start my last month of ministry on May 1, I would blink, and it would be time for final debrief. Asia had been such a pleasant surprise and I was so happy to be finishing my Race here. However, nothing about this month has been a breeze. We were warned of the spirit of apathy in this country from the very beginning. Our team prayed fervently against it, but it was all around us. I’m sure it doesn’t help things that it is month 11 and many of us are tired and sick (our immune systems telling us we’ve pushed them too far). I have struggled more with patience this month than in any other. Of course, I dream of the comforts of home which has caused a lack of patience, but many other things have weighed heavily on me this month. I have struggled with being constantly surrounded by 18 other bodies. I have struggled with the monotony of teaching 8 English classes per day, and the people who never seem willing to do their share. I’ve struggled with the over 100 degree daily heat, and with the complete inability to escape from it. I have struggled with the inconsistency of electricity for our fans (the only things that keep us sane). It seems that every day has been longer than the one before it. With home so close, I am determined to make these last few days count. I don’t want to regret not taking every opportunity to build relationships with the people here. But the enemy is attacking, the challenges are frequent, and my mind is a constant battlefield. Through it all, though, I must hope that this experience is growing my patience. And I do deeply desire to be a patient and peaceful person. So, despite the fact that this last month of my Race may not be ideal, I’m going to suck it up, give all I have to my last few days of ministry, and allow myself to recover at final debrief. I know that I am a much more patient person now than I was before. And I trust that one day, I’m going to wake up and realize that I will be at that time a much more patient person than I am right now. So, I'll say “yes and amen” to where I am in the process today, and try to do a better job tomorrow.
I realize that this is likely my longest blog yet, but I know that what is written here is necessary… If not for any of you, then for me. For me now and for me 20 years from now. The World Race has been almost nothing of what I expected it to be. But it has changed me more than I ever anticipated it would. I don’t want to lose this. Any of it. So, thank you for sticking with me through this crazy year. Thank you for believing in me, for praying for me, and for reading my ridiculously long blogs. In 11 days, I will return to America being somewhere between utterly the same and irreversibly changed. I hope this blog inspires you, teaches you, challenges you. If nothing else, I hope it makes you think. You don't have to travel the world to be taught by God. You could be sitting on your couch reading blogs written by a stranger. Reading a newspaper. Reading your Bible. Talking with a friend. Talking with a mentor. Talking with a child. Talking with God himself. I encourage you to take time today to ask God what He is teaching you. And then take the time to listen to His response.
See y'all in 11(ish) days! 🙂
