- Lice: Q Squad has had people with lice 3 times over the course of the Race. Those little buggers are hard to get rid of. We were matched with Team Awakened, and two of the girls had lice. It’s a process to do treatment, wash the hair and clothes and then pick their head daily until you no longer see any eggs. Anyways, I picked a time or two and discovered that of the things that need to be done, head picking is among something I rather enjoy. Probably because I like talking to people and head picking is just a good excuse as any to hangout.
- Ministry: English Club, Kids Club, Teen Club, Worship and Construction. We were given different schedules and I felt fortunate that I was able to be involved in several ones. For the first 8 months of the Race, I was open to any assignment and let the powers that be choose. After 8 months of that, I decided to give more voice to this process and spoke mostly of desiring relational ministries and the opportunity to have variety so that I could see what all goes on in the ministries our hosts are a part of. English club was in the morning and we talked with mostly women about life and culture in Transnistria. Kid’s club was filled with gypsy kids. They were affectionate and I was sad to see them go. I was impressed by Teen club because the program seemed to empower the youth to put everything together and pull it off. They often had engaging games, talks, skits all put on by the youth. I sang in worship one Sunday and we mostly leveled the dirt of a training center. I have to say that my least favorite ministry on the Race is manual labor. I’ve done quite a bit in my life before the Race because my family is in construction and even then it’s slow, tedious, and laborious work. But Race manual labor is whole other thing because you have no power tools. So it’s even slower…
- Home: We lived in a big concrete room that sectioned off the side for the girls. There was one shower and toilet in the side and a room for the men. The men were in rehab and did construction on the site. The 3 guys on our team were housed there. Upon arrival we celebrated the availability of beds, a hot shower, a toilet and meals that would be provided for us. It’s funny how being on the Race makes you celebrate the little things. There was 1 toilet, for 20+ people. You had to be very sparing with hot water for showers for the same reason. There were 10 girls in our room and for storage we used the underside of our bed, but still we were grateful for what amenities we had.
(Photo Credit for all pics except the top left goes to Mary Timaeus)
- Team Awaken: was the team we lived with. I was glad for the pairing because it had the combination of people I was friends with and/or people I’ve always liked and wanted to get to know better. It also opened my eyes to how teams have different norms and rules of how to do things. It’s also nice when there are a few more people because it’s easier to find a buddy who wants to do the same things you do.
- Life in Transnistria: I discovered from the people we met there that there is not much economic opportunity. Most of the people spoke Russian. We heard that kids are taught at a young age not to smile without a reason because it looks foolish. The women are very fashionable and we had these funny moments when people would be surprised, asking us if it’s normal that we don’t wear make-up and is it normal to dress like this (so casually). For me a month is good if there’s opportunity to be relational and this was present this month. Transnistria is a breakaway state which functions like it’s own country with it’s own currency, police, government, postal service etc, but which is not recognized by the US. It’s in Moldova but it’s more like a little Russia, but more European.
- Feedback: One of the challenges of feedback is figuring out the real issue and not simply saying, there is this thing that bothers me. In normal life it’s more of a conversation where the hearer can draw it out of you by asking questions. Anyways, there had been all sorts of things that bothered me about the way things are run on the Race. But while India was great, it was exhausting and by the end of Nepal I was completely tired and spent, in Romania I began to recover and in Transnistria I was finally rested enough that I could begin the internal conversation and get to the bottom of what was bothering me. I finally figured it all out and was able to communicate these things with my Squad Mentor. It was good to have come to some conclusions and finally speak about them.
- Rhythms of Work and Rest: I’m a big believer of rhythm. I think when Jesus tells us to follow Him He shows us a way to live with includes this rhythm. Starting in month 5, my ability to maintain a rhythm got worse and worse. For me figuring it out always takes great effort to set up a way to live that helps you thrive and keeps your heart full. But our set-up changes every month, and some are not as conducive to a healthy rhythm as others. One month, ministry was during the nights, another month it was all over the place, some months the schedule is packed full, and your home full of noise that there is no stillness to be found. It was so much work to figure out a pace that keeps me in a good place that I almost said, forget it, I’ll just do this when I get home, where things don’t change every month. Anyways after a meltdown after Nepal, I realized I couldn’t give up and began to fight again for rhythm in Romania. It was in Transnistria that I got to enjoy the benefits of it and it was where I started to feel my heart become whole again.
- Life in Community: Sometimes feedback and calling people upward turns into imposing your standards and convictions on others. I spent more time considering that balance in community, talking to people about what my process for that looks like and pushing back when I felt it happening to me.
- Cake: We ate cake and ice cream a lot this month! We celebrated Ben’s Birthday, Nicole’s birthday, Koyla’s birthday (Russian young man who lived at the center) and had a good-bye cake. So much cake!
- Learning to be confident in God’s character: I love it when I see God’s hand in things, there’s nothing like it to bring comfort in encouragement. But for me the Race has been long stretches of not understanding what He’s doing, and holding fast to His character.
