One year ago today, beneath the heat of a baking tent, Brandy called my name.
I walked out from beneath the tent and joined the other five people that had straggled to the sunshine, looking around in curisoity and apprehension. Who were these people?
I saw the one I thought was so pretty, with her long, blonde hair and fiery spirit. Her thick, Arkansas accent comforted me, since I knew she was the only other person besides myself that had roots planted in the deep South. She smiled; it made me feel better.
I saw the girl that had shared her backpack with me on our camping adventure just days before, when we were instructed to pack two persons to a backpack. She was calm and insightful, very mature and very nice. I remembered randomly talking to her on the phone one tme before the Race, though I didn’t know much about her at all.
I saw the really talkative guy who gave me a hug the first day. I remember thinking he was sporty, charismatic, and had a lot of charm. He was one of the two guys that I had my first real conversation with the first evening of camp, underneath the tree. He was from Buffalo, New York. I remember being excited about it, because he was the first person I had ever met from Buffalo, New York.
I saw her, what was her name? Ah, yes. I couldn’t forget. She was the first World Racer I ever met in real life. We pulled up into the Gainesville Compound at the same time, the very last ones to arrive. She drove a white car with a South Carolina license plate. I remember thinking she had such a gentle voice. I knew she was both polite and kind by the way she walked, if such things can be so determined by a person’s steps.
I saw the guy in the tan hat. I remember thinking this was interesting, since he was the other of the two guys I had my first real conversation with, underneath the tree. I remember thinking he was a really, really nice guy, sweet and standoffish. He didn’t talk a lot, but his laughter compensated for all he didn’t say. He always looked really interested in what anyone else was saying.
Then, the leader-girl who had called my name walked out to meet us. I remember having chatted with her a few days before while she sat on her bed. Her words were both thoughtful and enthusiastic, and I remember thinking I really wanted to get to know her. Even before she was made a “leader” and we were all on the same playing field, I remember thinking she was very wise.
Once we all became cognizant of whose name had been called, interesting things happened. The pretty blonde girl looked extrememly happy, so I figured maybe she had been placed with the best friend she had made. The really talkative guy was really happy to see the guy in the tan hat. He laughed deeply and rattled off the first, “Yo, Don!” I ever heard (Certainly not the last). The leader was deeply joyful, if not a tad bit unsure of what to say. In true leader fashion, she gathered us in with,
“Guys, this is our family!”
Even though I was scared to death of this moment as I was waiting to be called, a peace I can’t describe descended on me as I walked out from underneath the tent. When she said this, a deep, inexplicable feeling welled up within me and confirmed her words as true.
Yes, this is my family.
Training Camp, until this point, had been emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually grueling. After our team announcement was made, we had only one direction: Go make a memory.
So, seven crammed in a five-seater, we drove into Gainesville for Starbucks, Texas Roadhouse, and Dollar Tree hijinx. I learned much about my team, and I was more than excited to get to know them as deeply as I could. As we road around in Kendra’s car, we rolled the windows down, played music, laughed until our sides hurt, and shared stories.
I remember the fresh invogoration of that day: Seven strangers bonded together on an unbelievable mission, an electrifying quest…. To travel thousands of miles and innumerable roads, to discover the world we only knew as pictures in books and words on maps, and to love the guts out of each other while doing it.
I knew things wouldn’t always be this fun, that really hard things would happen, and our conditions wouldn’t always be as life-giving as the wind in my hair felt that day. I knew that we’d rub on each other’s nerves, that we’d feel imprisoned by the constant nearness of these people when all in the world we wanted was a single hour of privacy. I knew we’d be sleepy together, hungry together, angry together, and hurt together. How in the world could these things not occur in the span of one year of living on top of each other, twenty-four hours a day?
I remember being so strengthened by them and their vast differences.
Aside from Ashlee and myself, who’s geographic location is centered in the deep South, we were midwesterners and east coasters. We had been everything from journalists to vaccuum salesmen to ex-pats to urban youth directors. We had extrememly different ways of life, extremely different stories.
But we were famiily.
“You don’t choose your family.” They told us this over and over at Training Camp. The people we were to be grouped with would become like our own flesh and blood. “Funny family,” I thought to myself, noting how different Brandy, Anthony, and Don talked than me, their accents standing as an obvious marker of different lives and stories.
I had my fears, though, grounded in my own insecuritues.
I wondered if I would be likable to them? I wondered if I would annoy them, seeing as I have a tendency to get really loud without knowing it and to talk the ears off a rabbit. I wondered if they would love me. No… would they really love me?
So many questions, one year ago today.
And now, how do I answer these fears that I felt? How do I address the insecurities that were so much a part of me then, the ones that don’t define me now? How do I sum up a lifetime’s worth of experiences that have been crammed into the space between the tent and the table at which I’m now sitting? How do I convey what has happened in me, to me, through me, and for me? How do I even remember that day one year ago in light of all I know now? How do I remember the emotions and fears I felt about people I didn’t even know? How can I with any clarity recall the excitement of adventure before stamps on passports became monotonous and new exchange rates bothersome? How do I explain about the strongholds that have tumbled, the uncertainties that have fled, the fraudulence that has ceased?
Even though things changed from that day (In November, Brandy became squad leader, Anthony was moved to a new team, and I gained one of the greatest gifts of my life in their place, my big brother, Ken), I have not ceased to believe every single one of them has been placed here, in the most undefinable of life’s epics, to forever be my family.
How do I explain the depths of abandon, one year from finding them, in which I have come to love them?
It’s simple: I really can’t. I love each of them in unique, clear, and bottomless ways. I see so much of the person I have become in all of them, because they were loving and patient enough to pour their wisdom and experiences into my own life. Even though Ken wasn’t on my team one year ago today, it doesn’t make him any less of my brother. Even though Anthony hasn’t technically been with me since November, I know that our love for each other has only grown deeper. And even though Brandy has only been able to be with us in small increments, my relationship with her has only become stronger and more meaningful with each passing day.
Considering this, it is with an aching heart and more than a few sniffles that I write these words.
In the complete, full-circle way of God, in the exhaustive workings of His imagination and the deep meaning of His symbolisms, it is no surprise to me that today, one year from finding my family, was our last day as a team, too.
In the complete, full-circle way of God, in the exhaustive workings of His imagination and the deep meaning of His symbolisms, it is no surprise to me that today, one year from finding my family, was our last day as a team, too.
Today marked the end of our work in Cambodia. Next month, Don and Ken will be separated from us as all the women work in bar ministry and all the men work in construction and intercession. As of today, we will no longer do any more ministry together, as a team.
As a family.
I’m not good at letting things go and I’m horrible at goodbyes. The fact that one month from tomorrow I will be flying home at the speed the pieces of my heart are falling is not a consolation for me. Yes, I am excited to go home to my biological family, but the incompletion I’ll feel at being apart from my family will be devestating. Because, at the end of the day, there are no planes to board that will take me back to all of them. I’m terrified of feeling lost, in the middle of all the Mississippi-covered familiarity I know like I know Ken’s complete wardrobe or the sound of Kendra’s voice.
All I can say is that, even though I haven’t always agreed with the “‘Tis better to have loved and lost” theory, I know it more than applies here. I can’t imagine who I would – or wouldn’t – be without this family of mine. I can’t imagine where I would be, I can’t imagine doing this with any others.
AIM was right. “You don’t choose your family.” Honestly, in my interviews, I never picked any of them as people I wanted to be on a team with. One year later, I thank God that He picked them for me. His plans are infinitely greater than any of ours dare to be.
I think back on all these things that I was afraid of and I can only laugh.
I was afraid I wouldn’t be close to Katie. She’s not my friend, she’s my sister, who is closer to my heart than the fickle term that “friend” sometimes imply.
I was afraid Ken would turn a cold shoulder to me. He’s poured into me more than any person I can remember, and I owe him a debt I can never repay for all he’s taught me.
I was afraid Kendra and I wouldn’t connect well. We’ve laughed soul-deep in undignified throws of hilarity, and she crawled up under a sink to get me when the delerium of my sickness put me there.
I was afraid Anthony would want to ignore me. He’s cried with me in my deeper pains and rarely passes by me without hugging me, rubbing my back, or telling me he loves me.
I was afraid I would annoy and anger Ashlee to irrevocable means. She honors me and loves me with all of her heart and I relish our friendship with a love I can’t express.
I was afraid Don and I would never be close. I can honestly say that after this year, he may be one of the best friends I have ever had.
I was afraid Brandy might think I was below her. She has, time and time again, honored and uplifted me and held me to the level of my anointing, personifying a compassionate sister.
What was I afraid of? Perfect love casts out fear. And I found that in each of my brothers and sisters, in a way I couldn’t have fathomed one year ago today.
Life changes, and I’m not good with that. People move on, the world continues turning, and it won’t miss a single revolution for my tears. But in this deeply bitter, deeply sweet impending separation, I have a comfort from my Jesus. No matter the names of states or oceans or continents that separate us, no name can crush the name we were founded on, one year ago today. And, against the backdrop of Brandy’s year-old, chirpy, midwestern declaration, a myriad of experiences and losses and countries and people sweep my mind like a blur, but the faces of Kendra, Katie, Anthony, Brandy, Ashlee, Ken, and Don stand out pristinely…
“Guys, this is our family.”
