“Knock knock,”

“Who’s there?”

“Suzie.”

“Suzie who?”

“Suzie your new best friend.”

(Above, in the photo you’ll see two of my newest yet closest friends from this journey, their newest nicknames “Suzie”. Why? Well, that’s an inside joke and really won’t make sense outside of those who shared the week with us. So anyway what matters is Jerome, in front, and Arley are some of the kindest dudes I’ve ever met. The one week I got to share with them will for sure be a highlight of this trip.)

On the WorldRace, making friendships is a lot like knocking on strangers’ doors and asking to come in for a cup coffee. You really have no idea what the other person’s life looks like or how you’ll find connection. Yet it’s a choice to bring a smile, crack a joke and tell a few stories to break the ice. Fast Friendships It’s the culture of the WorldRace.

It’s the culture of Kingdom Building. If you told me two months ago I’d be friends with two translators in Colombia, I don’t know that I would have believed you. Yet here we are, literally 5 days after meeting looking like we’ve known each other forever. It can be so easy to choose our friends based on similar interests, similar activities, similar style, etc. Yet in God’s culture EVERYONE becomes friends. I’m not saying you have to love everything about them. What I am saying is I choose to be kind, to care, to ask questions, to give everyone a chance because you just never know how you’ll connect. In all phases of life you only have so much time with some people and you never want to look back and say “I wish I would’ve asked that” or “I wish I would have told them how much God loves them”.

If I’ve learned one thing in all the friendships I’ve made on this Race, it’s that our time is short. Every conversation holds value because it may just be the last one. In choosing this perspective I’ve made deep relationships with many of the people I’ve met. Of course I hope to see them again face to face but if I don’t, I know that they know how I feel about them. I know that I now have friends all over the world that would welcome me with open arms.

It has so much more to do with the choice to get to know others and a lot less to do with the surface level similarities you may share. It’s incredible to be able to say that goodbyes are hard after only a month, or only a week of friendship. I really have no idea if I’ll see any of my new friends in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, or Colombia again this side of Heaven but I know I’ll see them on the other side.

It’s such a beautiful depiction of God’s culture, the culture of love. A culture I think we all could spend a little more time living in. If no one has told you today, God loves you and so do I. The end. Period.