321 Days

                                                                         7 languages

             39 Passport Stamps

          13 countries visited                            

                + 2 more countries visited in transit

                                                                                      +5000 Photos

22 different modes of transportation

18 Flights

              84 hours in the air (3.5 days)

                                                   169 hours on a bus (1 week, 4 hours)

          6 scuba dives

                 341 meals that included rice

       Up to 5 different currencies in my wallet at once

                                                        49 squadmates

           4 different teams; 12 different teammates

2 safaris

       69 beds

4 continents

More than 30 new foods tried

                   8 people in one taxi

127 New Facebook Friends

            6 scars

                 1 parasite

9 chickens killed by my team and I (and one goat)   

                        5 items crossed off my bucket list

7 UNESCO World Heritage Sites               

                                                   4 Jellyfish Stings

98 bug bites...on one leg....below the knee

My friend Emily Tuttle quoted in her blog that the World Race sometimes seems like the Chronicles of Narnia. 11 months ago I stepped foot into a wardrobe. Inside this microcosm I lived an entire lifetime that people back home might have trouble even imagining. And now, almost a year later, it's time for me to emerge from the wardrobe and rejoin the normal world.

The more I think about it, the more I like this analogy.

I go off on an adventure into a whole different world. I meet new and unique people. I learn a whole new culture. I have all these adventures, and the whole time learning more about God and developing an intimate relationship with Him. Then, after time has passed, I leave the wardrobe and go home.

I think I started off this race as Susan. Susan had heard all about Narnia from Lucy, but didn't believe in it until she was there. I had read all the blogs about the world race before leaving, but I don't think I fully understood what the Race was until I was here. But pretty soon after starting, I think I transformed into Lucy.

Lucy starts off the series as a young girl seeking desperately for more time with Aslan. She is drawn into this strange world full of adventure and new things, and wants to get everything she can out of it. Most of my readers probably already know, but in this series Aslan represents Christ. On the World Race I tried my best to see the world as Lucy saw Narnia. I tried to give it my all every day; to live the adventure, to see new things, and to build a personal friendship and relationship with God.

There is also another aspect of Lucy's character I identify with. When Lucy first went to Narnia, she came back after a long day to reassure her siblings she was okay, only to find out that they hadn't even noticed she was gone. Sometimes racers feel a bit like Lucy. Except that instead of time pausing while we were in the wardrobe, lives kept moving forward. People kept going with their lives, of course, while we were gone. Our friends and family lived an entire year without us, just as we have lived a year without them. There are new friends, there are new relationships, new babies. There have also been heartaches, deaths of loved ones, and bad days. And, just as it should, lives have moved on, and now that we have left the wardrobe, it's time for us to find our place once again in the lives of our families and friends.

And I know that the response I get from different people will be varied. I know that there will be some Mrs. Macreadys out there, who just don't quite understand what I've been doing. But then I know that there will also be some Professors that somehow will know exactly what I'm talking about even when I don't have the right words.

Now that I am leaving the race I am feeling a bit like Peter at the beginning of Prince Caspian. In this book Peter has been back in England for a while, and is struggling to find the balance of being who he was in Narnia, and who England expects him to be. He is trying to figure out how to be the man he became in Narnia in a world that is not ready for it. Going home for me I will be trying to figure out how to live out this new life that God is revealing to me, and to walk in the new identity God has given to me. God has transformed me this year, and now I need to figure out where I fit at home.

But I hope that soon I will be Edmund. Despite a rocky start, Edmund is a character that I love by the end of the series. He seems to be almost making up for lost time. He had a rough past, with the betrayal of his family to the witch, but he puts it behind him and moves on. He becomes one of the strongest characters, and one of the most secure in his identity.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he experiences grace and has to come to terms that Aslan died for him. And that even after he rose from the dead, Aslan still loved him. In Prince Caspian, this time it's Edmund who is the one strong enough to withstand the spell of the White Witch. And in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Edmund begins to share his story with others, telling Eustace about his ugly past in order to help Eustace deal with his own problems.

Edmund has to come to grips with the high price paid for his salvation, but in the end triumphs over evil, knows who he is in every situation, and then helps others with his testimony.

My prayer for going home is to be able to be more like Edmund. I pray that I will be able to stand firm in my identity that I know Christ bought for me with His blood. I pray that I won't dwell on the past, and that I will know who I am now, and I pray that God will put me in situations where my testimony will be able to help others.

Plus, I've lived with Mr. Tumnus for a year so that makes this whole Narnian analogy even more real.

 

 

Friday, November 18

 1. Making Bricks

Most mornings our ministry was to make bricks that would be used to make a floor for classrooms in the newest building. Together our team made more than 1000 bricks!

2. Gym Class

I wrote a blog about this already (read it here), but this month was a month of gym class for me. While it wasn't my favourite part of ministry, it was definitely a part I will remember. And when can I ever say again that I participated in African gym class?

3. Jackfruit

Culinary adventures are a part of life on the World Race. In Uganda the big adventure was jackfruit. It's a giant yellow fruit that is super sweet and has an incredibly strong, sickly-sweet odour. You eat it by cutting open the rind, pulling out sections of it, pulling out the seed from the centre, and peeling off the stringy bits. Then you eat what's left.  It's delicious for a couple of bites, but then the taste gets overpowering. But our hosts kept giving us chunks of it that were massive, and we didn't want to offend them by not finishing it. We got creative with "sharing" with the kids around us, strategic aim into the bushes when nobody was looking, and some girls even stashed some in plastic baggies in their purses!

4. Lake Victoria

On one of our days off I joined some of the girls from Team Transformed and we went on a little trip on Lake Victoria. We caught a ride in a local style fishing boat and went out to a little beach that a friend of ours recommended. Unfortunately, our friend had not been there in many years and the beach was now overgrown and swampy. But we still had fun looking out over the lake and playing Phase 10.

4.       5.       Kick the Can

We made several house visits this month, but one in particular is one I will remember. We ate some amazing food, and then played a huge game of Kick the Can with most of the kids, and many of the adults, in the neighbourhood. Some of the neighbours looked a little concerned at first when they noticed a group of "muzungus" (white people) creeping around the back of houses, peering around corners, and trying hard to be sneaky.

6. Bert the Chicken

Some of you may remember that in Kenya our team did Christmas in July, and my gift was Bert, the Christmas Chicken. Well, Bert joined us for travel day and came with us to Uganda. He spent he month happily wandering around the school property of Goshenland, making friends with the other chickens, and hiding from the overly affectionate children. Bert also travelled back with us to Nairobi at the end of the month, where he received an invitation to stay at Milimani GuestHouse, where he will be living a long, happy life.

7. The Newlywed Game

 After living with our team for about 5 months we figured we knew each other pretty well, so one night we played the Newlywed Game! We paired off an answered questions about our partner, things such as their parent's names, their favourite color, or their dream honeymoon location. The winners....Emily and I! 

8. Harry Potter

Yes, I am a Harry Potter fan. And I was a pretty sad I was going to miss the last Harry Potter movie in theatres. Until....we found a movie theatre in Kampala! About 8 World Racers all took advantage of an off day to experience a Ugandan movie theatre - and saw the last movie in the Harry Potter franchise!

9. Friends from Canada

Sometimes on the world race some weird connections are made. We were visiting a man whose wife is studying at a university in Canada. I asked about it, and learned that she is in Edmonton, Alberta (the same city I'm from!). In fact, when he showed us a picture, it had been taken in a park I'm pretty sure I recognize! So I have her contact information and hope to be able to meet her when I go home.

10. Children's Choir

The children at Celebrate Jesus Church sing together in a choir, and they are actually really good! They all line up and dance and sing every Sunday. They are so cute, and so talented. They were always a great addition to our Sunday morning services.

11. Helping Grandma with Corn

One of the routine tasks in Uganda is taking corn kernels off the cob so the kernels can then be planted. One of the seniors in our church is the most precious and adorable lady ever, so we went to visit her one day. When we were there we saw a huge pile of corn that she was trying to take the kernels off. But her hands are severely arthritic, and it was very difficult for her. So the seven of us all just sat down and grabbed some corn. Sitting there with her and helping her with her work was so much fun, and we finished in a couple of hours what would have taken her days to do. I ended up with blisters and bleeding fingers, but it was absolutely worth it to see her smile.

Amen, our contact's daughter

Month Eleven.

Wow. I find it so hard to believe that this is the last month of the race for me. V-Squad is now in Cambodia for our final month of ministry. In some ways this year has felt like a thousand lifetimes, but at the same time it has flown by.

This month we're living with two other teams in Phnom Penh and we are working with an English language centre. It's a place where students can come for free English classes. They institute is Christian based, and students are told up front that it is Christian based, but since the lessons are free the students come, and the parents let them come. But through the Bible studies, the church services, and even using Bible verses to teach grammar, the gospel is being taught, and these young students are being saved.

Cambodia has an interesting age structure, largely due to events in the recent past that I will be talking about in my next blog. But in this country, 50% of the population is under the age of 20 years old. 80% is under the age of 30. This means that student ministries like the one we are working are increasingly important. It is true for every country that the youth are the future of the country, but looking around here and seeing how many youth there are here, it seems to be even more true here.

At the end of month one, our contact pulled me aside and told me that I should look for opportunities to teach. My first thought was that I'm no teacher! But the more I prayed about it, the more I decided to give it a shot. This year I've learned a lot about preaching, and have had plenty of experience with it. But somehow I always felt that this comment was more directed towards teaching in a classroom - specifically teaching English. But going into the last month of the race, I thought I would never get a chance. 

But once more, God's timing for the win! 

This is so far out of my comfort zone, but then again, the entire race has been. And it seems somewhat fitting that there is this connection between month one and month eleven.

So, add one more to the World Race Resume...Teacher!

This month I was able to spend some time in the beautiful country of Laos and it was such an eye opening experience. 

Laos is a country in pain. The countryside is scarred by a secret war. The people oppressed by a communist regime. Christians are persecuted, even martyred. The atmosphere is fearful, suspicious and bleak.

And yet the Christians here are on fire. Here there are no "pew warmers". It takes commitment to go to church. It takes faith because it is a lifestyle that could endanger your life. Christians in Laos have to be secure in their faith, because the cost is too high for them to be lukewarm .

This month our team was given the opportunity to make a video for the ministry we worked with here. Emily was definitely the one in charge of this project, doing the filming and editing, with our assistance on the script, voiceovers, music, and layout. We hope that this video speaks to you, and we pray that it will bring people and prayers to the contacts we were blessed to share with.

Please note that this is not the full video. The full video includes interviews and videos of Lao Christians and missionaries that are too dangerous to post online. This is the edited, internet version. Please let me know if you want to see the full version when I get home.