Day 227: The Day We Were Evacuated

Yep, it’s true. We are back in America after being evacuated from the global pandemic crisis and ongoing threats of COVID-19. Our World Race ended three months short of the expected eleven. The abrupt ending consumed my mind and heart while my body was frantically in crisis until my teammates and I each had both feet on American soil.

This isn’t easy. I have to force myself to sit down and write; fighting the urge to clean my room, cook something in the kitchen, or just sleep. I’m desperate for something to control, something orderly and safe instead of the wild, untamed world of our current events and the black hole of my own spiraling mind.

I don’t want to admit I’m actually back on American soil. But, this season is begging to be unraveled and told even if I want to just NOT (but I think that’s both the easiest and most cowardly choice). No matter, I will soldier on. I will keep praying and keep staring out the window and forcing myself to keep writing, keep processing, keep trying to get my feet on solid ground.

I’ll attempt to process it all out for you here (from the safety of quarantine) but cut me a little slack in the name of Just Not Feeling It.

morning glory, from the journal – March 14, 2020

I’m writing to you from the comfort of my bed on the 16^th floor of a friend’s apartment building in Baku, Azerbaijan.

I have my cedar candle burning and Turkish style coffee brewing to elicit any sense of familiarity and comfort before everything I have known these last eight months seemingly slips out from under us.

Just two days ago, we received an email from HQ that we were good to go for now. And now, I’m anxiously waiting for my teammates to wake up and read the email that says we’re going home.

When I read those three words – so brief, powerful and incredibly tender – I put my head down and sobbed. These three words would drastically change the trajectory of our next three months. The tension and anxiety flattened me. I felt hit by a freight train, rendering me out of control and humbled into uncharted territory.

I re-read the email. It couldn’t be true. I went to the kitchen where it’s empty and let my thoughts fill the silence I was afraid to face. The sun poured in through the window as I looked out to the calm Caspian Sea and the busy streets, simply because I didn’t know how much longer we would have this view. The sun’s rays hit the table as I opened my Bible, searching for peace in what has become my closest confidant.

Late that same day, we were told our flights had been booked; we would have 36 hours.

36 hours from reading that heart wrenching email to pack up, say our goodbyes, and head to the airport. 36 hours to do the monthly ritual of seeing my heart shatter into a million pieces as I continue to give it away and scatter it all around the world (because that’s just how our goodbyes go these days).

36 hours and the long journey to NYC (by way of Moscow) would begin. 36 hours where we would move so fast, I would know the Earth was moving beneath us, but any notion of solid ground was a thought of the past.

Seat 23H, from the journal – March 16, 2020

All sense of time had turned on its head; everything I thought I knew was changing at a moment’s notice. Our plans to carry forth to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia were gone. Now, the only destination was home, as fast as we could get there.

What’s becoming clearer and clearer to me is that the most sacred moments, the ones in which I feel God’s presence most profoundly, and when I feel the goodness of the world more arrestingly, have been here: knee deep in change.

I have become very familiar with change. I ought to be immune to the shock now, but I can’t help but look ahead to the culture shock when this plane lands; it’s going to be entirely glorious and terrifying. The shock is already disorienting and dislocating; the sobering reality of going back to America is sinking in.  

I know I’ll soon be surrounded by success and despair and possibility and ambition, by peers whose lives are running along a trajectory that is no longer mine. And in contrast, I’ll be coming from no personal space to empty streets and supermarkets, six feet of ‘social distancing’ when I’m used to the three-kiss-Arabic-greeting.

I spent eight months living in tight community with people: sharing absolutely everything, having no personal space, no secrets, nothing that was my own. And now, I’m reconciling to myself the fact that my parents won’t hug me when I land.

And YET, when everything else seems to change, He doesn’t. When I’m fighting to find solid ground to stand on, He’s always been the rock I rest on, the wing I find refuge under. And so, this season will be marked as all the others: by His glory, His grace, His love.

an Official Permission Slip (for us all):

Permission to slow down, because when I pay attention, the tears reveal all sorts of stuff: what I truly care about, the ways in which I have grown and stretched beyond imagination, and the Lord’s faithfulness through it all.

Permission to let go, of the expectations I had. To release what should be and accept what is. What I was clinging onto, hopes and dreams stripped prematurely, knowing the release will set me free.

Permission to keep living with the capital-t-Truth leading my heart. When it’s counterintuitive and countercultural, I know what’s worked. I know the central values of Christianity that I want my every day, word, step and direction to embody: sacrifice, redemption and forgiveness. The new challenge, however, will be what that looks like outside of the World Race, and especially when this plane lands. And who knows what the h*ck is next, but I do know it’s OKAY, because… 

If you take the next right step, if you live a life of radical and honest prayer, if you allow yourself to be led by God’s Spirit, no matter how far from home and familiarity it takes you, you won’t have to worry about what you want to be when you grow up. You’ll be too busy living a life of passion and daring. (thanks, Shauna Niequist).

So, we carry on. I’ll keep telling the stories of His goodness and light and LOVE in this dark time, if you’ll keep reading them.

Join me in prayer: Lord, we know you are GOOD you are SOVEREIGN and everything is in YOUR timing. We trust you, we love you, we praise you in the middle of the storm. Mark this season with your glory.