The Amazing Race

Sunday night, Carly informed us that Monday was “adventure day.” Now, you have to picture this right: Carly is about 5’3, tan, and has the cutest little Australian accent you’ve ever heard. She is also very active and adventurous. So, when Carly tells us that we have an adventure day, we have reason to be worried. She even handed out a “packing list” so we would know what to pack without finding out where we were going.. the list was:

- comfortable walking shoes

- a hat

- togs (we later found out that togs are bathing suits…)

- a camera

- Australian sunscreen

Needless to say, we were a little worried, but very excited.

So Monday morning we all get up bright and early and the boys meet us over at the girls house so we could all ride together in the big YWAM van. We ended up at a park with these big buckets tied to strings that were attached to trees. It was there that Carly explained that we were participating in the Amazing Race: Gold Coast. She split us into three teams:

1) cheri and frank (both staff members)

2) Andy, Shae, and Holly

3) Frankie, Ivvan, and Grace

She explained that throughout the day we would be given clues that gave us a task to do or a place to get to, and when we completed the task or arrived at the correct destination, we would get our next clue. So when the game began, we had to get water from one end of the park to the other by using the buckets tied to the strings. Cheri and Frank were the first to finish (of course) with team 2 and team 3 close behind. We spent the rest of the day completing silly tasks that involved walking for miles in the sweltering Australian sun, running through shopping malls, baking cakes in the front yard of the base, etc.

One of our clues was to take a bus to surfers paradise where we had to ask Australians questions about Australia like “what was the song that came in 2^nd place for the National Anthem” and “an Australian BBQ is not complete without the following” and we were even forced to learn how to sing the National Anthem by asking the poor shoppers to teach us. We were making such a scene that the McDonalds people “rang security” and we had to run out of the mall before they came! I almost got taken to Australian prison!! It was terrifying slash hilarious! And when we finished that task, the next one was to eat a “Vegemite” sandwich, which is quite honestly one of THE MOST disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten.

Later on in the day, our clues took us to Surfers Paradise beach and one of the biggest out door malls in the world. Unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy the beautiful beach ( and surfers ) or the amazing mall because we were given a bag full of items (a cowboy hat, tattoos, an Australian flag, face paint, and stickers) that we had to wear while taking pictures with things like a sandcastle, in the ocean, a big clock, etc. So my entrance into Surfers Paradise was holding an Australian flag, wearing tennis shoes (gross….) and looking completely gross and sweaty and asking random Australians to take our picture… but hey, it was all for the Amazing Race!

Our last task of the day took us back to the base’s front yard where slip’n’slide was awaiting us. But was it normal slip’n’slide? Oh no, not with Carly and Martin making up the game! At the bottom of the slide was a bowl of red jello and in the red jello were pieces to our next clue. And…. We weren’t allowed to use our hands. So not only were we stuffing our faces in bowls of red jello and searching for clues with our teeth, but then we had to CRAWL back UP the slip’n’slide!! All the while the staff is cheering and taking unflattering pictures in our faces! I kept getting jello in my eyes, and it stung.. haha! Who would’ve known that jello was bad for your eyes? I didn’t think I would ever find that out!

So at the end of the day, we had walked 12 miles, gained marvoulous (and painful) farmer’s tans, only to be beaten by, of course, cheri and frank. However team 3 came through in the end and beat team 2… in my opinion its because we were better at stuffing our faces in the jello. Or something..

After that we were exhausted but we all ate dinner together. I’ve been eating really healthy foods here. Lots of veggies. Mom would be so proud! Haha!

You think this day is over? Think again.

Shae and I walked back into our room only to find a HUGE spider in the middle of our floor. I mean… HUGE. I’ve never seen a bigger spider in my whole life. Thankfully, Emmanuel was in the kitchen so I ran to get him and he charged in our room and killed the spider. Shae and I thought we were safe. We prayed over the floor and asked God to keep us safe and keep the spiders away. So we began painting our finger nails. At one point, shae opens the door to go to the kitchen and then starts scream “THERES A SNAKE!!!! THERES A SNAKE OUTSIDE OUR DOOR!!!!!” and she RUNS across the room and doesn’t get in her bunk bed, but instead hangs onto the top bunk and is like dangling….. (hahahahahhahahaha….) so if you know my feelings about snakes you know that by that point I was already under my covers hyperventilating and praying that God would help me breathe. We didn’t know what to do! We contemplated screaming for help and throwing things at it, but neither of us wanted to get near the door. Finally we agreed that since I can’t even look at snakes, I would open the door (standing ABSOLUTELY as far away as possible) while Shae would sit on the top bunk by the door and tell me if it was real and if I needed to slam the door. All the while we’re whimpering and crying and freaking out. Finally I get up the nerve to open the door and it was gone, and Emmanuel was standing there laughing.

It was fake. He tricked us.

I almost cried in joy, anger, and trauma. So then we just went to bed.

what a day!