Sunday marked one month since the race ended, but I had a blog idea. I was originally planning to write a blog at the end of the race about the transitions between each country to help process and to give a recap. And although it’s a little later than expected, I know I could still use the processing and none of you ever got a recap either. Plus, now I can add in the transition of going home for a day and a half and then to summer camp.
Alright, let’s rewind about a year.
In order to understand my transition into the race, we need some background.
I turned in my application to go on the World Race the last day they were due. I didn’t feel like I had a concrete yes or no from God, so I figured I’d apply and see what happened. Getting accepted to the race was followed by the last two weeks of my busy high school career, 3 months of work at summer camp, and a week and a half at home to prepare for leaving.
All that to say, I was wildly unprepared for what I was getting myself into.
The first words that come to my mind when I think about my transition into the race are overwhelming, strange, and confusing.
Environment-wise, I was in a state I’d never been to, with 43 people I’d basically never talked to before, getting ready to do missions oversees, which I knew nothing about. I couldn’t have very many expectations because I had no idea what to expect in the first place, but that didn’t make the transition any smoother. I had nothing familiar and that wore on me pretty quickly.
It takes time to get used to a completely new environment, so for the first couple weeks of being there, nothing felt ‘right’ and that feeling was unsettling. Thankfully, I started to adjust after not too long.
By the end of training camp, I had become great friends with my team and had gotten much more used to being away from everything I had known, so most other transitions during the race were far easier.
Most of what I felt when changing between the vastly different cultures, climates, and environments of the countries we went to, was excitement. I love change and when the time came to switch countries, I couldn’t wait to see something new.
Guatemala was the first country my squad went to on the race. When we landed, the first few noticeable cultural differences, made obvious by signs, were the facts that we were in a Spanish speaking country and that they use the metric system. The next immediately noticeable difference was the source of the nickname ‘The Land of Eternal Springs’. We were there October to January and it truly felt like spring the whole time. After spending a little bit more time in the country, the culture of people in Guatemala became very evident. You’re commonly met with kind greetings when walking down the street and welcomed into the homes of most people you strike up a conversation with. The warmth of those interactions became more evident when we made our next transition.
Some things don’t seem super noteworthy until experiencing a new culture. Switching from Guatemala to Romania raised my awareness of warm greetings, cars honking, and clean streets. Craiova, Romania is a larger, more developed city compared to Guatemala’s rural areas that we visited. The rush of the city was displayed by the silence you’d hear in response to a simple ‘hello’. However, the rush also came with something else that I wasn’t used to. The city was surprisingly quiet. After getting used to the noisy traffic of Guatemala streets, I was shocked by the absence of honking and other loud sounds in the big city. Another contrasting aspect of being in Romania, was the presence of trash cans on every light post and a crew of people constantly cleaning the streets, where in Guatemala you’d see trash lining the streets and stray dogs roaming through it. Most aspects of being in the city were not what we had experienced or would experience anywhere else.
The transition to Africa was even more dramatic. My squad lived in the bush of Eswatini and it was very different than the city of Craiova, Romania. The eight hour drive from the airport to the base we were staying at felt strangely familiar. The terrain looked like Iowa, and the car smelled like old family road trips. I was nervous that living in that would make me homesick, but along the way, things changed and became less like home. Africa jumped some far extremes from what life was like in Romania. First of all, we went from freezing temperatures to 90° in a matter of days. We also went from having access to countless grocery/restaurant/shopping options, to having the only places within reasonable driving distance be a small grocery store and a restaurant. In addition, we switched back to similar feeling greetings as in Guatemala, from a warm, welcoming community. The slow, peaceful lifestyle of Eswatini was a great place to end our oversea travels.
When transitioning back to the U.S., I didn’t experience culture shock very intensely, like many people do. It was strange to feel such familiarity in such a different way than I had before because I was with my squad, but they had been the constant through every transition, so when I had them in the U.S., I was still completely comfortable. That transition felt almost just like any of the rest.
Then, a month ago, we jumped to the transition back ‘home’ -being summer camp- after the race. Being without my squad during this transition has felt like starting over once again. This time it has a twinge of familiarity because I’m in a place I know, with people I know, but I think I’m what’s different. I’m relearning what serving God looks like, I’m relearning what real, Godly friendships look like, I’m relearning what sharing God with people looks like, and I’m relearning what walking in intimacy with God looks like. I’m in a place I’ve been before, but I’m not living in it the same way I was last time and that’s a lot to relearn, especially without my team by my side.
But God’s been the true constant through all of it.
And He still is now.
And He always will be.
If this reflection on those months has reminded me of anything, it’s that God knows what He’s doing and I won’t stay where I start.
