I asked the people for questions to answer in a Q&A blog post and then procrastinated on that blog for two months because that’s just the way I am. But your answers are finally here!! And more to come (hopefully)! Enjoy getting a glimpse into the struggles, joys and everyday life of my last eight months on the World Race! With only three weeks remaining, I’m getting really nostalgic for all my adventures around this beautiful world and am feeling really thankful for my Jesus and my supporters (you guys!!) that have made this life possible.
What is your current ministry assignment?
My team and I have been living in a small town in Albania called Poliçan since the beginning of March. We live above a church, and our work and purpose here is for the church. One of our main goals is to bring youth back to the church. When we got here, there was a huge gap between children and older people that was missing in the church. So we began a program for teenagers on Friday nights where we hang out with them, teach them from the Bible and just love on them. We help with a kids program on Saturdays, and the kids also give us random visits knocking on our door asking us to play. On Sunday mornings we help with the church service. Throughout the week we do a lot of praying for the community, house visits, trash cleanup, yard work, painting, baking for people, mountain village outreach, playing with kids, and just building relationships with people in the community.
What do you miss most from home? What will you miss most from other countries when you come home?
I MISS BEING ABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE. With anyone and everyone! It sounds like such a dream to me at this point. I’ve actually really been starting to miss a lot of things about my country recently. Things like laws against littering, the professional and efficient way things are handled, being respected as a woman, etc. But the number one thing I miss from home is definitely my people.
From other countries I think I’ll miss the slow and relaxed way of life the rest of the world seems to have. It’s refreshing. In the last eight months I’ve been gone, I’ve rarely ever felt the feeling of stress. I’ll miss that a whole lot.
What country has felt the most like “home” to you?
I’d have to say Ecuador. I’ve always had a love for Latin America so it felt very familiar and homey to me, and I could communicate with everyone! My team was basically adopted into our hosts family and just did life with them. I was instantly in love with my life and ministry there and its the one place I would have no reservations about moving there if called.
What are the top 5 things you’d advise someone going on the World Race to bring?
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Study Bible — you’ll probably get very motivated to study God’s Word and you won’t always have internet to go as in depth as you may want.
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Bluetooth speaker — makes hang out times more fun and dance parties possible! Also really useful in ministry.
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A little make up — there’s night you’ll go out and you’re gonna wanna feel fancier than normal.
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Birks/easy shoes to slip on and off —in many countries you have to take your shoes off at the door of any building you go into and having slip on shoes just makes life a whole lot easier.
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Photo prints — it’s so nice to be able to personalize your space by putting photos of your loved ones on the wall. It’s made me feel more at home wherever I am.
These are all things I didn’t bring initially or wasn’t planning on bringing at first when packing but they’ve really been life savers haha.
What’s the one thing you wish you knew before starting the race?
THAT THE RACE IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU MAKE IT. Believe it or not, it’s possible to come out of the World Race relatively unchanged. The perceived craziness of it all just becomes your normal life to you, so you have to make the everyday, conscience decision to chose into all God has for you in it. It’s exactly the same in this aspect as it will be no matter where you live and what you’re doing with your life.
What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve eaten?
One Sunday in Cambodia a few of us went to a church where we had made friends, and they were raving about the traditional Khmer meal and expensive fish that they were preparing for us to eat with them after the service. When we sat down at the table, they set out these long, skinny, grey river fish. And we discovered as we bit into these fish that they were filled with dozens of little bones, and that we were expected to eat all of them. So we tried our best to down a few of these fish, trying to keep out of mind the black, trash-ridden Cambodian rivers that we had watched people fish in, and the scratches and pokes our throats were getting as the fish went down. However, Jake was the genius that day and sneakily shoved a few fish in his backpack when our friends weren’t looking.
What has been the best and worst parts about being on the World Race?
The best part in my opinion is the raw, honest, fun, intentional community you receive from it. You get to live a life of ministry, adventure and seeking the Father alongside people that literally become your best friends and your family. You learn to love each other well, and its so beautiful. I’ve learned more from my team than just about anything else I’ve learned on the Race.
The worst part is the goodbyes. The nature of the Race is to fully invest yourself in the ministry and people you’re placed with, only to have to tell them a real goodbye a few weeks later. It hurts so bad sometimes, because you grow to truly love these people and then you have to grieve the fact that you’ll probably never see them again. Even harder is having to say goodbye to teammates that sometimes have to leave the Race. My team had two leave, and it was truly saying goodbye to a brother and a sister.
Have you ever felt insecure on the Race? And if so, how do you deal with it?
ABSOLUTELY. Overcoming insecurities, comparison, and feeling unqualified is something that just about everyone on the Race has to deal with. And that very realization that everyone feels those things has been one of the most helpful ways to overcome it. At the start of the Race, when I was living and doing ministry with 40 absolute strangers, I struggled so much with finding my place and with giving my all when I thought so many people could do it better than me. But when the people that I compared myself to the most, the people that seemed to really know what they were doing and who they were, said that they were having those exact same struggles–feeling less-than, feeling like a number, not seeing how they fit–that’s when I really started to realize that I am not a victim. I slowly realized that I don’t have to wait for people to approach me, and I don’t have to wait for others to step up before I do. BECAUSE I HAVE SO MUCH TO OFFER. The Lord made me, along with everyone else on my squad, a very specific way with unique gifts and insights and personality to bring to each situation. Something my team has talked about a lot on the Race is how we each carry a special piece of the Lord’s heart, and when we withhold ourselves, everyone around us is missing out on that piece of His heart. So, that was kind of all over the place, but basically I’ve just learned to overcome the insecurities by shifting my focus OFF myself and choosing to live in the knowledge that God has given me so much to offer, and that I should live my life giving those beautiful things away. It’s not about me!! It’s about HIM, and about loving those around me. That mindset really changes everything.
Describe the best day on the Race.
It’s so hard to choose one best day because there’s been so many GOOD days. But I’ll tell you about New Years Eve in Chaing Mai, Thailand–definitely one of the best. I stayed up really late the night before with some of my teammates having deep conversations and laughing our heads off. At 4am we decided to finally go to bed, but instead I went to the roof of the hostel we were living in. I stood in the dead of the night, overlooking the city I had been living in the last couple months, and I was overwhelmed with emotion. The city that was always so crazy busy was completely still in this moment. I looked out over where the red light district was, and my heart broke for the women, men and children that had spent the night selling their bodies. I looked at all the many extravagant Buddhist temples and prayed for the people living in such darkness, not knowing the light of my Savior. I had a moment with God. I was amazed by the goodness He’s shown me, letting me be born into a family in America that loves the Lord, which eventually gave me the opportunity to spend two months of my life in Chaing Mai. It is a city covered in darkness, but He set His light within me and allowed me to shine it in the darkness. Let me never forget what an honor that is. After praising my Lord and interceding for the people I was living among, I went down to my bed and fell asleep with a heart overflowing.
That day, leading up to the night of celebration, I ate delicious pad thai (as I did everyday #obsessed), had a pool party with another World Race squad we had been living with, roamed the streets of Chaing Mai with my girls searching out fun things to do (again, as we did everyday), bought lipstick with Harper and then made a video of us dancing to our favorite song, and then went to dinner with friends.
After dinner we walked a ways to where the party was happening in the city. The whole city was setting off floating lanterns, and it was an actual dream come true for me to be a part of that. We got the most delicious smoothies I’ve ever tasted and drank them while we got $2 foot massages on the side of the street. We sat by a river and watched as the sky became more and more covered in lanterns. When it was getting close to midnight, we started making our way back to the hostel to celebrate with everyone on the rooftop. We obviously picked up some more pad thai on our way back. Once midnight hit, the entire sky exploded with fireworks. The moon was full and bright directly above us, and every direction you looked there were floating lanterns and never ending fireworks. My phone was blowing up in my pocket from loved ones at home wishing me happy new years, when their new years was still 13 hours away. It made me feel so loved that they were thinking of me like that. We spent the next who-knows-how-long dancing and singing at the top of our lungs on that rooftop. Joy, excitement and love filled the atmosphere. I remember looking at the sky with tears welling in my eyes, and whispering “thank you” to my Father in Heaven.
