"It's just too late to start living like sisters now."
"Whatever guys, three more weeks."
"Our team is all sick of each other, but we're all just waiting it out now."
These are the statements I've heard all around me since we started our journey to our final country. The World Race is no longer the exciting journey it was when it started. The novelty has worn away to routine doldrums. The promise of living in community has become a cacophony of incessant social stimulation. In truth, most participants remain solely because they are resolved to finish what they started. With the finish line in sight, everyone keeps plodding along.
This is no way to end.
How can we take a year full of joys and turn it into regret? How can animosity abound in a community grounded in love? How can we share a Kingdom of Heaven when we are unwilling to invest the grace and love required to maintain that Kingdom, even amongst ourselves?
We cannot.
Eleven months is enough time for everyone to discover something an alumni told me I would come crashing into. "Everyone on the race hits a wall where they just wanna be at home." For some it's in month 1, others month 3 or 4, there's a phrase passed around about "the month 7 desert", and lucky racers won't hit it till month 9 or 10. Here, at month 11, it's hard to find somebody that hasn't hit this wall.
Now, with three weeks of ministry left, it is time to reevaluate our original intentions… but this time, they must be evaluated with ten months of experience weighing the decision. Here, in the final leg of our journey, we must ask ourselves if we would do it all over again. Now, as we prepare for the next chapter in our life, we must consider what will be taken from this journey into the next.
For some, it is an important realization that the mission field is not where they are called to serve. For others, new callings have been revealed to engage their communities at home. I do not know where my next journey will take me. But I know I am unwilling to take bitterness, resentment, animosity and regret there with me.
It is time for a choice.
My bitterness will turn to joy. My resentment gradually subsides to gratitude. My animosity slowly softens to compassion. My regrets form a foundation of new understandings.
This is not the end.
This is the beginning…
