In the spirit of my 100th day on the World Race, I would like to let you in on a frequent quote we use here on this trip, it goes as such: “Only on the World Race……” Here are some of my favorites thus far, enjoy!
Only on the World Race
- Do you go into a convenience store in South Africa only to spray yourself with the tester perfume, walk out, and get back on your 35 hour bus ride
- Will your entire team get bacterial infections from eating in a garbage dump
- Do you attempt to steal an entire package of toilet paper rolls in a hotel in China
- Do you eat every meal as if it might be your last
- Will you tell everyone to get all their farts out in the Pick and Pay before getting back on the bus
- Do you get attacked by a yak in Tibet
- Do you sing praises of joy while pooping excessively and your team cheers outside the bathroom door
- Do people ask to take pictures with you because you’re white
- Do you sleep on the aisle floor of an 18 hour train ride
- Do you seize every opportunity to eat, even when you have no clue what it is
- Do you live off of less than 3 USD per day for food
- Do you sit with your legs in the air on travel days to avoid “elephant feet”
- Do you receive tons of compliments on how nice you look for changing your shirt or brushing your hair
- Do you not go ANYWHERE without your water bottle – the bathroom, the grocery store, the next room… etc
- Do you long for people at restaurants to give you their scraps instead of throwing them in the trash
- Do you brush your teeth under a mango tree*
- Do you watch children play softball with limes*
- Do you learn how to make Mexican flour tortillas… in China*
- Is peanut butter a delicacy
- Do your prayers start to become a lot more desperate
- Do you take the extra sugar packets from the tables at restaurants and store them in your backpack for your oatmeal or coffee later
- Do you lose your camera and break your computer in the same week
- Do your outfits look like something that should be on “what not to wear” on a daily basis
- Do you make up your own terminology that only your teammates understand
- Do you talk really slow, loud, and simplified because you’re so used to people not speaking English
- Do you go up to a vender selling ramen in China and bawk and flap your arms like a chicken to ask if the ramen is chicken flavored*
- Does your entire perspective on money and how you spend it change
- Does feedback, honor and preference become a part of your daily life
- Do you find the prophetic meaning in everything
- Does a Buddhist Nun come up to you in a monastery, grab your hand and walk beside you with absolutely no words exchanged between the two of you
- Do you learn to live, challenge and grow with people like you would never believe
- Do you constantly ask yourself “Is this really my life?”
- Does God somehow make raising $15,000 easy
- Do you spend Halloween in China, Thanksgiving in South Africa, and Christmas in Mozambique
- Do you leave your family, home, job and FIANCE simply because God told you to
- Do you eat an 18 day old fermented duck egg*
- Do you learn how to two step in the rain in Mozambique*
- Do you take the liberty to walk in the middle of the road everywhere you go
- Do you walk for an hour to get chocolate, diet coke, and more hair for your weave
- Do you find a way to live in harmony with three other women in a concrete room about the size of your bathroom at home with all of their belongings plus 4 mosquito nets hanging from the ceiling and questionable electricity
- Do you have a candlelight dinner of dumplings with your monk friend at a restaurant in China because the power went out
- Do you have to hide from the police in a secret room in your hotel in China because it’s illegal for you to be there
- Do you play Uno while hiding from the police in China
- Does facebook become a lot less interesting
- Do you wear the equivalent of one or two weeks’ worth of clothes in the States for 11 months straight
- Do you become so much more aware of the favor of God because you have a lot less of an opportunity to “find” your own favor
- Does your definition of “missionary” completely change
- Do you realize that YOU are who God wants to use to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth
- Do you see God move in prisons, cemeteries, monasteries and dumps
- Do you hunger and thirst for God like never before
*symbolizes a contribution by a fellow squadmate
