In order to celebrate our halfway point of the race, here is a list of moments I’ve collected over the past 6 months that have made me take a step back and realize that adventure and living radically for Jesus have become my new normal!
- While showering in a one-drip faucet with shampoo in your hair, the water unexpectedly cuts off, so you stand there all soapy for the 20 minutes it takes the water to start working again. Bonus: A parrot is wolf whistling at you the whole time from outside of the shower.
- When you misplace your phone and someone offers to call it… and everyone laughs!
- When you hear your teammate wiping dryer sheets on her sleeping bag to keep the bugs away.
- When you are standing in a 7-11 behind a monk buying cigarettes.
- While riding in the back of a truck on the way to the city dump, you ask your translator why Granada, Nicaragua doesn’t come up with a way to limit the number of stray dogs in the city, and he replies, “Well, a circus passed through town last month and people picked up the strays to feed to the lions.” Animal control at it’s finest.
- When there’s an earthquake and your roommate jumps out of the bed yelling that a demon is shaking it!
- When the only brand of white bread around is called Bimbo.
- A cold bottle of water bigger than your head makes you tear up a little.
- While eating breakfast in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, you see an old lady in a bikini walking 7 dogs (with one missing a leg) while also carrying a parrot on her shoulder.
- While in a church service in Manila, Kendra was showing a picture of Pig, my dog, to a child and asks how to say dog in tagolog. After being told by the kid that the word is “aso”, she loudly announces, “This is Margot’s aso” to the whole congregation.
- When a teammate can’t decide what ministry she likes better and you hear someone ask, “Gun to your head: if you HAD to pick your favorite between orphans or widows.”
- While riding in a jeepney in the Philippines, everyone says the word from payment, bayad, when they pass their money forward. I tried to do the same but accidentally pronounced it “bayag.” The whole jeepney began to laugh as my contact explained to me that while bayad means payment, bayag means testicles.
- When eating sweet cheese and corn flavored ice cream is worse than eating balut.
- When you have a layover in USA and frantically search the bathroom stall for a trashcan to put your toilet paper in because you forgot that you can actually flush it down the toilet.
- When you know, down to a science, which pair of your underwear dries the fastest.
- When you actually look forward to eating McDonalds.
- When sarongs become the best thing ever invented: towels (that dry super fast after handwashing), dressed, skirts, scarves)
- You see a monkey casually strolling down the street on the way to church.
- When your contact forgets to buy dog food and jokes that the dogs are going on a temporary fast.
- When you think the squatty potty at your ministry site is super nice because it has ceramic tile around it.
- When a 6 hour bus ride doesn’t seem long at all.
- When your teammate compliments you that you smell good and asks what perfume you’re wearing, and you reply, “I have no idea. I sprayed some on from the sample section of the mall.”
- When you eat lunch at a women’s fellowship in a remote village in Nepal, and you eat what you’re told is lamb but what you later discover is water buffalo.
- When Lauren asks Grace why she isn’t washing her clothes, and Grace says, “All the wells are taken.”
- When God radically transforms your life and 50 complete strangers become your family!
*Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support! I am still need of donations before the March deadline, so please contribute if you feel the call to give. Also, prayers for a fun and fulfilling second half of the race are appreciated too!
