Dear Future Racer: Great Expectations

They tell you at training camp to drop your expectations of what your race will be like.

Understatement of the century.
Seriously.

If you don’t drop your expectations, you will crash and burn, my friends.
Even worse, you could end up like Veruca Salt…

I’m about halfway into month 10, and my race has been amazing.
It’s been terribly hard at times, and incredibly fun at others.
I have no complaints, but I want to share with you some of the highs and lows.
Maybe the alums and the racers who’ve been on the journey a while can relate, but maybe not!

You see, the race is an individual journey… much like your spiritual walk.
No two races are the same.

You embark with a squad of however many, mine was about 40 people (5 people went home), all set to go on a tentative route of 11 countries (yeah my route changed). You are put in your first team (teams change), and you go to month 1.

Teams sometimes work together, but sometimes there’s a lone ranger team in the middle of nowhere. *cough cough that’s me 80% of my race cough cough*

Sometimes you get put in a fun big city doing that coveted awesome ministry everybody wanted to do, but sometimes you get put in the middle of a rice field instead.

Sometimes a team gets put in a HOTEL, with a/c, in the middle of a big city, while a team is out in a place no one has heard of, with broken fans, sharing a house with rats who eat the team's cereal.

Sometimes a team gets to go to Singapore and to Sihanoukville, or they’re placed right by an amazing beach, and others never get to experience those fun beaches or places.

Sometimes a host buys you icecream and makes you nutella crepes, but sometimes they don’t. Haha, had to mention that!

Sometimes teams change, and you get put in a really great team, with amazing people you’ve always wanted to get to know. Other times, you might be put in a really challenging team, with people who may or may not even want to be there, or without somebody you feel comfortable talking to. It happens. You either grow or you go, fight or flight, literally.

Sometimes we have internet, beds, toilets, and even someone to do our laundry, but sometimes we are without those amenities, and spend 2 hours doing laundry by hand.

Sometimes we do have internet, but it randomly fails, especially when we have skype dates set up. Or our electricity goes out for 12+ hours at a time.

Sometimes a team has an amazing ministry host, and they cry and cry at the goodbye and say “I can’t wait to come back to visit you”… but sometimes the host is not so good, and you cry and cry in the middle of the month, praying that the month ends already.

Some people go healthy the whole race, while others, in the same team, are hospitalized with typhoid, malaria, parasites, and diseases galore.

Can you see how the race is an individual journey? Like I said.

Now you’d think I’m complaining, but I’m not!
God taught me the most in the hardest situations, and He also blessed me very much. Here's what my race looked like:

 My team was usually the team in the middle of nowhere. My team and I shared a home with rats, who loved to make appearances and noises at night. But that same team got to visit Sihanoukville, which is a really beautiful beach in Cambodia. Most teams have gotten to experience bigger, cooler cities, but my team got to go to Singapore. Ya win some, ya lose some.

I’ve been in difficult teams and really easy-breezy, we-love-each-other teams. I’m currently in my 3^rd team, but some people in other squads, by month 9 were on their 7^th team. Teams change. The first team change was super dramatic for me. I cried, most of my team cried, and it was a hot mess. I got through it, though, and I got to know my 2^nd team, and they, too, became family. Funny enough, most of us wanted a team change when month 7 came around. I remember throwing my fists in the air and screaming “wooo!” when I found out my third team. And I have people in my squad who I consider family who have never even been on the same team as me, so… you make friends, teams change, we survive.

I’ve had tough ministry hosts who never encouraged us, and ministry hosts who showed us what Jesus was like by example and even made us nutella crepes. Just pray.

I’ve been healthy most of the race, but I have gotten allergic conjunctivitis, high fever, food poisoning multiple times, sinusitis, and respiratory infections. However, I’ve had teammates with malaria, typhoid, and parasites. My former teammate, Travis, had to go back to the USA because he got cerebral malaria! That’s crazy! Thank God he recovered, but it was a really close call! We’ve taken a big risk coming on this trip to do God’s work.

I am in love with Uganda. I was really looking forward to a month there. I want to include Uganda in my future ministry, and support an orphanage there. However, because of the Ebola Virus outbreak, we were evacuated and rerouted to Kenya. I love Kenya and our ministry that month, wouldn’t trade that experience for anything, but Uganda will have to wait until after the race.

Speaking of Kenya, being able to do counseling in Kenya has literally changed my life, confirmed my calling, and it was exactly what I needed.

I was fortunate to be in Chiang Mai in Thailand, and work with Lighthouse In Action, doing ministry against sex-trafficking. Most people wanted that ministry, but some of my squadmates cried because they were so passionate about sex-traffic ministry yet they were assigned to work in the rice fields.

I’ve prayed every single month that God provides a western toilet at my ministry site, because squatty potties gross me out so badly. And God answered my funny prayer for 9 months straight. Yep. Western toilets in AFRICA for 3 months straight. God can do anything He wants hahaha. The potty streak has been broken on month 10, squatty only. It’s weird, yall. Smells awful and I hate going at night. And the floor is always wet, and you never really know if it’s pee or what. Lord have mercy!

Oh and the weather? Coldest months for me were Honduras in February and Kenya in August. I actually needed a jacket. Nepal, however, is hella hot. Don’t let the pictures fool you! Most months have been super hot.

I’ve been consistently in a smaller city for the last 6 months. I’ve been praying that God puts me in a big city again, because I really like big cities. Guess what? Here in Nepal, I’m in a tiny city, again, while others are in Kathmandu. I’m not gonna lie, I was upset. I may have cried over it…

BUT…

I gave up my world race expectations.
That wasn’t just a one-time thing.
I gave up comparing my race to other people’s races, and my journey to theirs. I gave up my route. I gave up my health. I gave up control for 11 months. I gave up being able to call my best friends and my family. I gave up skype dates and reliable internet. I gave up beds and toilets. I gave up “safety” as I knew it.

Yeah, it gets frustrating sometimes. I’m not a robot! I got my first white hair on this trip. Not a coincidence, yall! At times, the setting gets to me, the abandon, and the messiness of it, and the constant community, the lack of privacy, the crazy, constant traveling. It irks me. I still feel entitled to so many things, yet take for granted so many more.

In those times, it helps to pray, or to listen to my favorite songs really loudly, or call my mom, or write a really long email. It also helps to remember my excitement as I packed my bags to go on this crazy, life-changing ride. My willingness. My joy. My tears as God funded my trip. My pictures holding little babies and teaching English and preaching and doing things I've never thought I'd ever do, because God chose me to go on The World Race. Hello perspective, how I missed you!

My World Race has been AMAZING!

Month 1: preaching in El Salvador

Month 2: holding an Angel in Honduras

Month 3: rolling down a volcano in Nicaragua

Month 4: bar ministry in Thailand

Month 5: epic planking in Cambodia

Month 6: laying bricks in Malaysia

Month 7: being a hostess and mentor in Rwanda.

Month 8: teaching Bible class in Kenya.

Month 9: kissing orphans in Tanzania.

Month 10: hiking to encourage believers in Nepal.

It all boils down to this: don’t let temporary expectations cloud your perspective.

Don’t let temporary expectations
get in the way of your eternal expectations.

We were wired to have eternal expectations, right? Because God is faithful! God has wired us to expect His love, because we need it. He has wired us to expect Him to help us in our weakness. God has wired us to expect Eden. It’s no wonder the world and the temporary stuff continually fail us.
We have eternal expectations which cannot be met by temporary things.

Don’t expect a certain team, or a certain ministry, or certain amenities. Don’t expect the weather to be just so, or the translator to actually understand you half the time. Don’t expect to be besties with every teammate in every team.

It’s okay to have great expectations, but focus on the eternal implications, not the temporary gratifications. (ohhhh that’s a sick rhyme! Read that sentence again!)

Expect to be plugged into a BODY, with different parts, different gifts, and different ways of doing things.

Expect to see ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ stuff.

Expect God’s faithfulness in keeping you safe.

Expect the Holy Spirit to well up inside you and overwhelm you.

Expect this trip to challenge you like crazy, and to push you so far out of your comfort zone that you feel like you’re in another planet. That’s God pulling you completely out of your element, teaching you there is so much more beyond what you know, so much unsearchable greatness to be revealed.

Expect to grow in maturity and perseverance from every bump in the super bumpy road.
                                                     
“Consider [the world race] pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4