We have officially reached our halfway mark on the race! I seriously can’t believe that I’ve now been gone from home for almost six full months. I have 153 days until I see my entire family. 153 days until I can hug my dad and brothers (I’ll see my mom in 30 days during our Parent Vision Trip). 153 days until I can hang out with all my favorite people at home and kiss my pup.
But I’m still doing this thing and have five and half more months. And in a weird way, I don’t want it to end. There’s a quote from one of my favorite TV shows, The Office, that goes, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”
Luckily, I know I’m in the “good old days” right now and wanted to share some of my favorite memories.
Starting with Chile:
My absolute favorite part about Chile was learning how to live in community. Beside my best friends and family I don’t have a close network of people my age at home. And I didn’t have the typical college experience with roommates, so this is basically the first time I’d found myself living in close quarters with girls in the same boat as me. And we were (and still are, just six different girl) together 24/7
We cook and eat together, we laugh together, we cry together, we give each other feedback, and we watch each other grow.
I will never have relationships like these girls again, because I will never go through this exact experience again.
The original Pandas. Marissa, Tori, me, Rashelle, Jaclyn, Jen, and Alli.
Argentina was all squad month. That means that all seven teams of seven were together on a YWAM base in Mendoza, Argentina. It was a time to get to know the other 43 people on our squad, while still cultivating friendships and team unity within our seven girls.
This was one of my favorite months because of the community we built with our HUGE group. If we wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to be all together I couldn’t say that I would have built as many friendships outside of my team.
But on Thanksgiving, while a handful of selfless people prepared a beautiful dinner, and during worship, three of my squadmates, Tiffany, Zach, and Marissa set up a time for them to wash our feet. They didn’t force it on us; they let us choose whether we wanted to take part or not.
To see these three humble themselves as Jesus did for His disciples was so incredibly sweet. There were a lot of tears.
Tiffany washing Christina’s feet. Shout out to Marissa’s long hair.
Next up is Bolivia. Team-wise, this was our hardest month. But the beauty of the village we were in and the people around us, outshone what the enemy was trying to do within our team.
We were placed in a tiny village 4 hours outside of La Paz called Chejje. Once you turn off the ‘main road’ of the mountain, it’s another 7 miles to get to where we lived. Two miles downhill, five miles up.
This was taken at the very tip top of the village. I didn’t make the walk, but a few of my dedicated teammates did and took this beautiful picture of Chejje.
We made some amazing relationships with the people of Chejje and saw them nearly everyday. The children knew where we lived and would show up first thing in the morning to make sure we made it to Vacation Bible School and then come over right after lunch to play soccer…. and usually stay very late.
This is Josephine. She and her sister, Lucia, have lived in Chejje their entire lives. Lucia couldn’t see very well so a few of us would go and read Bible passages as much as we could. Josephine was a bit younger than her sister and had a feisty spirit. She spoke English pretty well and I can still hear her saying “my rooster!” when she made one of our friends chase around a chicken trying to get him back in her yard…Only to find out that her rooster was safe at home.
This is Helen and Ruby. These little girls came to the VBS we held three times a week and were just shining lights of joy. They didn’t speak much English, but through our broken Spanish, pictures, and hand motions, we got to share the love of Jesus with them. The pictures they’re holding say “Dios me hizo diferente [and] bonita”, which means God made me different [and] beautiful.
Here, Alli is reading the Christmas story from the book of Luke to some of the children we’d invited over on Christmas Eve to celebrate with us. After this we roasted hundreds of marshmallows and danced to Feliz Navidad more times than I can count.
We couldn’t drink the water in Bolivia without boiling it. So our host got us a camping stove attached to a tank of propane gas. One night, while half of the girls were on a camping trip, the propane went out. And then, we ran out of clean water, so Marissa and I, with the help of one our Bolivian friends, Virginia, fashioned this little baby. For the rest of the day, between making noodles and mashed potatoes, we boiled many, many 2 liter bottles of water… that ended up tasting like liquefied beef jerky.
We stacked rocks around the sticks and brush we’d collected and then stacked tree stumps on top of each other to lay a huge tree branch across the fire to slide the pot over the fire. The trick was to not get the pot too close to the fire that it fell in, but not too far so the fire actually heated it. It took quite a while, until our friend, Virginia, came to help.
Our little village had a tradition where at celebrations (this particular one was a graduation) the women would make a dish called ‘panqueque’, which was basically egg, flour, and maybe butter, fried together, then set on top of rice, noodles, or meat. They would carry them in bowls, wrapped up in beautifully colored blankets and then lay the bowls in the middle of the crowd. Then, the men would go get a bowl, sit down, tear off a piece of the panqueque with whatever was underneath and then pass it to the next person. and this went on until every piece was gone.
We ate so much panqueque that month.
After a week long trip of bus rides (including one where they put our bus on a boat and made us all get off to cross over into Peru), planes, weird Uber drivers, sleeping in the Lima airport… We finally made it to Cambodia.
My team was placed in a village in the southern part of Cambodia, about three hours from the beach. We taught English to kids from age 3 to 18. I absolutely loved teaching this little guys, because look at their faces. They were so loving and silly.
These four little ones were part of our 8 am class. They would get a break, or a ‘changlang’, though I’m not sure that’s how you spell it because I don’t understand the Khmer language at all. During their break they would play their little hearts out on the playground or walk across the street and get themselves a VERY sugary soda and handfuls of candy.
Part of our ministry was also holding a kids club on Sunday afternoons. This particular afternoon we washed their hair and clipped their nails.
I mean, look at that face! I can’t tell you how much I loved this day. When I got finished braiding my little girl’s hair I showed her on my phone. She popped up and immediately hugged me and said ‘thank you’.
We met this woman named Nai. She was blind and could only make out shapes. She used to own her own house, but then was forced to move out by the government and in with her brother next door. We visited her almost everyday and she was always waiting for us underneath the house (their houses were built on stilts) on her little porch.
By listening to the Lord, our last day there, we ended up putting mud on her eyes like Jesus does with a blind man, hoping she would be healed. She wasn’t healed that day, but she did come to Christ, which will lead to so much sweeter healing.
We would sing for her, read Bible passages, and just talk. She had the sweetest smile and always made us feel welcome to sit around her.
With the new country of Thailand, came team changes.
This is team Relentless. Elise, Averi, Rhi, Bry, Megan, me, and Miranda. We know how to have fun, as is evident by the amount of times I’ve cried from laughing so hard.
Our ministry in Thailand was painting the hostel that Adventures in Missions (the parent organization of the World Race) owns. It was hard in the beginning to see what impact our ministry was having, but then I was reminded by one of my teammates that the point of what we were doing was to support the long term mission team that would be running this hostel and reaching people who came to stay, and even future World Race teams who would be stationed there.
This is Kimbra and Sam from team Happy Feet. We were at Zion hostel with two other teams, which made it so much easier to paint six floors.. every. single. wall. But it also was a sweet time to get to know these girls even more than I would have.
We shared one kitchen, one fridge, one microwave, two hot plates, and one sink with 19 people. So this is what it looked like on the daily. But I loved walking into this and getting to see all these beautiful faces. I also got to see three of my former teammates every day! Shout out to Alli, Jen, and Rashelle 🙂
My 26th birthday was on February 18th and I spent it in the company of my new team….. and frickin’ elephants.
Elise, Megan, Averi, and I after we’d gotten COVERED in mud from bathing our elephant friends. Mud to get clean? I don’t get it either. But it was a whole lotta fun.
After two months of being in the hot hot humid heat, we moved to eastern Europe… Serbia is our first stop. When we got here there was snow covering the ground, a stark contrast to what we’d just left. And our wardrobe was not prepared for it. I wish I had pictures to share of those vulnerable moments, but my phone went nutso and I lost most of my pictures from the beginning of the month.
We’re partnering with Protestant Christian Fellowship, a good sized church in the town of Novi Sad, this month. Our mission is to go out into the community, make relationships, and invite people to our church events.
One of my favorite stories is of me, Averi, and Miranda sneaking into a high school and getting ourselves assigned to teach English classes. It ended up falling through after our first day teaching, but it was all God.
Here’s Averi, looking like her cute, normal self, after we’d gotten our own English classes. Jesus looking down at us as per usual.
I’ve loved just about every moment of the race. Sometimes it gets hard and I feel like I could go home and I’d be just fine, but I know that God has so much more planned for the next 5 months. More memories, more relationships, more laughs, and more experiences with Him. I’m so excited.
