The race has taught me many things in the last 4 and a half months: challenging things, comical things and things I didn’t even know I had to learn. Community living is one of those things.
Community living means sharing your toothpaste with your new teammate because she can’t find hers.
Community living means everyone cuddling around a tiny 15-inch screen for movie night.
Community living means sharing even when you don’t want to.
Community living means waking up to other people’s alarms.
Community living means borrowing shampoo because your teammate borrowed yours last month.
Community living means crashing church cookouts.
Community living means sharing one bathroom with 10 people without complaining.
Community living means doing other people’s dishes.
Community living means receiving feedback even when it’s hard.
Community living means giving feedback even when it’s hard.
Community living means letting someone have your last piece of gum.
Community living means adventuring together on your days off.
Community living means having 32 roommates for the month.
Community living means having 2 roommates for the month.
Community living means carrying an extra pack on travel day because your squadmate is sick.
Community living means one of your squadmates prays for you when you’ve spent all your patience and are completely exhausted after crossing the border.
Community living means loving each other, and loving each other well.
Community living means choosing to see in other people what they don’t see in themselves.
Community living is something I’ve learned a lot about since I left the states. It is something that hasn’t always been easy, but something that has definitely grown me. I’ve heard marriage and parenting are two things in life that bring sin to the surface. Although I can’t speak from that particular experience, I believe community living fits somewhere on that list as well.
Community living has taught me so much about CHOOSING to love. When you and 15 other squadmates are sharing a living room floor for three nights, things get pretty chaotic. In spite of the chaos, I’ve learned to delight in it. When will I be in this place with these people again? All the laughs around the dinner table, the midnight pillow talks, and the afternoon adventures around a new city on days off are something I will forever treasure.
PS: We’re in Bolivia now and we’ve hit our halfway point on the race! So crazy!!
Love you guys so much.
1 Peter 3: 8-11
