Happy- Healthy- Outrageous

A control freak learns to trust- an ode to Gary Lee.

I walked into our last debrief stressed out, burned out, heavy and cranky. I felt like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. 

I'm normally pretty good at going with the flow. For the first three months of the race, I was a great follower- relaxed and dancing in the back with my iPod. But the second the title of 'team leader' was crowned on my head, I clenched up...I froze, I freaked out... and a control freak I became. 

It felt like I was constantly bombarded with questions, requests, mean tuk tuk drivers, and confusion. And in response, it felt like my blood pressure skyrocketed. 

There's that feeling- you know the one where you're really about to lose it? It's like your face gets hot, you can feel your blood boiling a little bit, and you feel really bad for anyone within an arms reach of you, because there's only a 50% chance that they'll escape unscathed. 

This was normal for me when it came to any sort of travel in India.

So when I finally got to debrief, and was placed in a room with the other team leaders to do just that... I collapsed. All of the weight I had been carrying finally knocked me over. I confessed that I had been carrying my team's every thought, every interaction, and every moment on my shoulders. I felt personally responsible for the fact that we got lost everywhere we went (which had absolutely nothing to do with me, and was completely due to the ridiculously terrible public transportation system in India.) 

And the best part was that I wasn't alone. Every team leader felt misunderstood, stressed out, and burned out, and for an entire weekend, we just got to fill back up.

So when it was time for us to travel again, I got nervous. I couldn't imagine that African buses would be any better than Indian buses, and I was a little nervous that my ugly evil twin was going to make an encore appearance. 

It didn't start out well either. 

At 10:30pm we piled into two buses with strange men that we were hoping were trust worthy, to head to the bus station. 20 minutes later we ended up on a street that couldn't have looked sketchier if it tried.

Instead of arriving at a bus depot, we were dropped off, with MASSIVE amounts of luggage, at a storefront, that was the home office for the bus company we would be traveling with. I surveyed the area realizing that we were now keeping company with the sketchiest of the sketch of Nairobi's finest. 

Having been warned about the massive problem of theft in Nairobi, we were doing our very best to keep our luggage close to us, but when you're traveling like a pack mule, that's not the easiest task. Also, having received more than one email informing me of the al qaeda's terrorist threat against tourists in Nairobi, my heart wasn't exactly set at ease.

Traveling through the night and having to stop at the boarder at 3am in order to get cleared to leave Kenya, and to buy visas to be in Tanzania didn't calm my heart at all. Guards were everywhere, I was 50% sure that our bus was going to leave without us, and I was in charge of all of this mayhem. 

And then finally... being dropped off at the bus station in Dar Salaam with all of our luggage and nothing more than the instructions "Find a guy named Alex- he'll help you" to guide us... panic was about to set in.

Literally, I can't think of a worse situation. With 9 faces looking expectantly at me, "wondering where our contact was, how we were going to get our next bus, where is the bathroom, I'm hungry, what are we doing?" I was about to lose it.

I think now is a good time to introduce to you my co-leader for this month, a Mr. Gary Lee.

Gary is a student at the University of Colorado, which made us bond absolutely instantly. He just turned 21 and has a t-shirt to prove it, and is one of the most ridiculous human beings I've ever met. 

He woke us up each morning at training camp by screaming "I feel happy, I feel healthy, I feel totalllyyyyyy outrageous!" 

So far on the race, Gary has hit an amazing 51-day streak of not showering- yet shockingly... he smells fine! His personality is larger than life, and yesterday he asked me if I wanted to come in to the bathroom and check out his poop- apparently proud of the work he had done.

During our debrief, one night, we had a squad-wide comedy show. Gary got up on stage and did an impersonation of a World Race alumni (flattering and yet, spot on...) until he decided to take a sharp left turn from his impersonation, and without flinching or making a face... he peed his pants, on stage, in the middle of our hostel's common area.

The best part is that his reasoning was that he'd always wanted to do it!

I just can't argue with that!

In addition to his ridiculousness... Gary is an incredibly intelligent man. He's a leader that fights for his team in the most incredible way. Due to some tough circumstances, Gary is now the only man in a group of 10 women here in Tanzania and handling it like a champ. He knows the ins and outs of the women on his team, and pursues them flawlessly.

We have team leader meetings every night where he asks me the toughest but most unbelievable questions... completely discontent to let me sit in any sort of brokenness or lie. It's unbelievable sitting in the presence of his love- because he wont let you out... he'll make you work it out until it's gone. It's daunting, it's unnerving, but it's amazing.

Gary is a worshipper... he's a man of prayer, and a man with an incredible ability for discernment. He will tell you exactly what is going on in any given situation, and wont act on ANYTHING until the Lord has given him direction.

Needless to say I'm learning a lot from Gary Lee.

But on that day, in the middle of a crowded bus station in Tanzania, with no money, no phone, no plan and nothing but the name "Alex" to go off of, he and I started out for some resources.

Along the way, as we were going to find a money exchange place and a place to buy a SIM card, I could feel that familiar sensation of my blood pressure starting to rise. That feeling of panic, of "I'm here on my own, and I have to figure this out..." and that's when he did it.

Loudly, a little off pitch, and completely ignoring the Tanzanians staring at us he started singing...

"Fight CU down the field, CU must win! Fight, fight for victory, CU knows no defeat. So roll up that mighty score, never give in... shoulder to shoulder we will FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!"

I joined in about four seconds into his rousing rendition of the University of Colorado's fight song, and the tension was dissolved.

We had absolutely nothing to worry about- Gary knew it, and so he wasn't panicking. Instead, in a moment of high stress, of a million questions and absolutely zero answers, he was playing, dancing, singing and laughing. And that's exactly how it should be.

In Matthew 6:25-34 Jesus tells us not to worry. He says, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."  

Gary has this on lock. He wasn't worried, he wasn't panicked, he knew that everything would be fine, and so as he trusted, he laughed, and he played. 

In the end, everything worked out... like it always does. We found Alex, we stayed in a hotel that night, we got showers and food, and found our bus the next day without a problem. We are here at our contacts house in Iringa, Tanzania, and everything is more than fine.

God provides for us. When he tells us don't worry... he really means "DON'T WORRY"... when he says, "he already knows what we need" he means, "HE ALREADY KNOWS WHAT WE NEED." 

He promises us that he'll provide for us in every way, every time... and he does! Even in sketchy bus stops in Nairobi in the middle of the night, and even when stranded in the middle of Tanzania with nothing more than a name.

I realized a long time ago that there were two ways I could go through life... one was by freaking out, and one was by remaining calm and trusting... and playing and laughing along the way. I feel like I had this on lock until I became a team leader, and somewhere in the mess and midst of that title, I forgot.

So Gary Lee... this one's for you. Thank you for preventing me from having a heart attack, but even more, for reminding me, in your own ridiculous way... the promises of God.

He's good, he knows what we need, and he always, always provides.