Many friends and family members back home have asked what I’m doing on The World Race. I usually respond with all that God is teaching me and showing me in my day to day life through ministry and those around me. “Yeah but what do your days actually look like,” they often respond. So... yesterday I took it upon myself to journal all day. From the moment I got up in the morning until I started to wind down for bed, I documented what my day looked like so that I could share it with all of you wonderful people. So without further ado, here is what a “typical Tuesday” looks like on The World Race.
I rolled out of bed this morning at about 6:20 (mind you, I had set alarms for 5:00, 5:05, 5:10, 5:15, and so on and just kept hitting snooze). It wasn’t even that I was tired, I just did not want to get up. I finally decided enough was enough however, turned off all of my alarms, put my glasses on my face, and toppled out of my bottom bunk abode where I and all of my belongings sleep this month.
We have about 4 or 5 other early birds in our house of 36. It sometimes seems as if the early hours of the morning are the only available alone hours (introvert time) that one will find in the midst of living with this many people.
There are 6 teams on our squad, so we rotate the chores everyday. There are 4 chores- cooking/dishes, sweeping/mopping, trash, and water duty. Each team also receives an off day both the day before they cook and the day after they cook. Today my team and I are responsible for cooking and doing the dishes.
I walked out of the room that I share with 7 other girls and headed straight for the kitchen so that I could begin preparing breakfast. Every morning you are given a choice of pancakes or fruit loops for breakfast (unless you have an allergy, like ya girl... which in that case you can eat eggs, or my personal fave a banana with peanut butter). My teammate Rè mixed the pancake batter and I began cooking them on the griddle. We then stacked them in a stainless steel pot and placed a lid on top to keep them nice and warm. I set out the “fruiti donas” (fruit loops), the milk that we make by mixing milk powder and water, a massive jar of Planter’s crunchy peanut butter, and the Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup. This morning breakfast was very much a “come and get it” mindset. One of my teammates, Emjay, began doing the dishes and it was decided that the 2 of us would be the one’s staying behind to help Francisca, our host Scarleth’s sweet mother, and Carolina, a family friend of our hosts, prepare lunch for the squad. This is typically how it goes on your team’s designated day to cook. 2-3 teammates will stay home from ministry in the morning to help prepare lunch, and 2-3 teammates will stay home from ministry in the afternoon to help prepare dinner.
To help with lunch Emjay and I peeled and chopped carrots, snapped and chopped green beans, opened a huge can of kidney beans, and washed and dried ohhhhh so many dishes.
It’s about 11:30am right now which means that the rest of our squad is getting ready to make the walk back from ministry so that we can eat lunch. Our ministry schedule runs from Monday to Friday. We leave our home at 8:40 each morning to walk the half-mile to ministry, then we all meet up at the front gate of our ministry grounds at 11:40 to walk back for lunch. We have an hour for lunch, so we usually begin our trek back to ministry at about 12:40. Our ministry hours end each day at 3:40, at which time we are given free time until we are required to be back at our home by 5pm for curfew.
It is currently 1:30pm. Hannah and Summer (the last 2 member’s of my team) stayed behind to wash dishes and begin prepping and cooking dinner. Rè headed to a local coffee shop with the other worship leader on our squad so that the two of them could plan and prepare for the worship aspect of an upcoming conference that our squad is partaking in this Thursday through Saturday!
Today ministry looks like Emjay reading aloud to Dania, one of the sweet adults at the home in which we serve. As for me, I am sitting with many of the adults and watching cartoons with them. They seem to enjoy it and it is slowly but surely helping me with my Spanish. Someday’s look like coloring and putting together puzzles, other day’s look like bringing my ukulele and singing and dancing around, still other day’s look a whole lot like today where we get to be present and peaceful as we spend time with these precious individuals that God has placed in our path to love. As ministry progressed Emjay and I also had the opportunity to help fold several buckets of laundry for the residents.
3:40pm rolled around and Emjay and I left our ministry sight to head to the front gate to meet up with the other members of our squad. Emjay, Maggie (one of my close friend’s and a member of team Grit on my Squad), and I decided to walk to Corsair, a local coffee shop in downtown Valle de Angeles so that we could get a little WiFi time before heading home to meet curfew.
I was determined to FaceTime my parents, respond to emails, and download Google Translate during my near 45 minute free time. How much of that did I accomplish you might ask... absolutely NONE of it (cue face in palm and heavy sigh). I was however able to post a photo of my friend Maggie on my Instagram, and I was able to post on my squad’s Instagram account as well before we had to take off.
We crossed the threshold of the fence to our home at 5:00 on the dot. Dinner this evening consisted of rice, beans, boiled eggs, and corn tortillas. We also just got in a fresh batch of bananas, so many people opted for that with peanut butter instead. Personally I smooshed together my rice, beans, boiled egg, and added a heavy dose of hot sauce. Hey... don’t knock it til you try it!
The rest of my evening will look like sitting in on a session led by my Squad Leader Brit, a six-minute ab workout, an icy cold shower, maybe reading a few more chapters of Everybody Always by Bob Goff, then hitting the hay around 8:30 or so... Yes you read that correctly, many of us are in bed well before 9pm and we have absolutely NO SHAME about this fact because we get up so early.
So there you have it! Everyday on The Race looks slightly different than the one that preceded it, but for this particular month in Honduras today was a beautifully typical Tuesday!
-Meagan
