Amazing Race: Day 1

My plane arrived on a cloudy day in Vienna, Austria. It was 11am local time. I had slept a total of 2 hours on the plane. The rest of the time was filled with hours of Tim Keller, Francis Chan, and my inflight playlist. Oh and Monsters Inc. With the interns from the plane, we were greeted by the JV staff. After an hour waiting outside the terminal, all the teams for the summer assembled. Thirteen total teams composed of 4-10 interns around the world. These teams were going to sports camps, music camps, and english camps to Slavonia, Poland, Czech, Ukraine, and Croatia. There I met Daniel and Kim Johnson, our camp leaders for the summer, as well as Sean Smith and Heidi Gingerich. Dan and Kim are two very sweet people. Daniel is quiet and softspoken, but every word is kind and intelligent and profound. He has been living in the Czech for 2.5 years, and learned the language in 5 months! (Czech is one of the hardest languages in the world!) Kim reminds me of Valerie du Mee. She is very sweet, very bubbly, and makes every effort to encourage you. Sean is very reserved and introvert. He's a star runner in a small Bible college in Indiana. Heidi also goes to school in Indiana with a mennonite background, so I am looking forward to some delicious bread soon here! I had no idea what to expect as far as personalities and cohesion. I was soon to find out.

The race began!

Our first task began with a scavenger hunt in the airport. Talk about extreme culture shock. I volunteered to go first, and one at a time, one from every group ran into this flowing airport asking around and looking for different items. I was given the task of finding a TOMATO! ...A TOMATO IN AN AIRPORT!? Not only was I lost in culture shock, there were issues with BUYING a tomato. I found a bakery that sold tomatoes. I ran to exchange money to buy it but I could only by 100 euros from the atm (that's a lot of American dollars, but I did it in the heat of the moment). Sadly, the bakery refused to take the large bill! I was left to go buy something from McDonalds. I bought some stupid apples, and still the bakery wouldn't accept my large bills. By this time, teams were soaring through, going on the 6th items, while I was stuck with my first, and my team waiting idly for me. I was immediately confronted with pressures of first impressions and fear of rejection from my team. I didn't want to be that guy. Finally when I got change, the bakery was so upset with so many Americans running in to buy tomatoes they shoed me away! I was left to find another source, with time running out. I ran around the entire airport, frustrated and irritated. When 2 flights up. And it wasn't until two flights down I found a supermarket (yea i know, these airports had everything!). I found a tomato and got in line to pay. After a few uneasy minutes, the cashier, in a language I could not grasp waves her hands to me to tell me I needed to weigh the tomato to get a price! GAH! I ran back to a foreign machine and yelled at the first worker I saw to help me. I got a receipt and ran back in line, dismayed to see the line got bigger. Finally, after what seemed like forever, I paid for my tomato and ran back to the team!...distraught...embarrassed...We went on to get other items-cookies, chips, random european bread...Now, undoubtedly in last place.

Once we completed those tasks we were given 6 clues in German of locations in Vienna where challenges awaited! The purpose of the Amazing Race was get to know the team we will be working with. To awake in each other leadership, cohesion, and confidence in times of conflict and problem solving. We had no translator, and were left with nothing but the clues. Our leaders could not assist us, but follow idly. It was so difficult. The challenge in approaching strangers was conflicted with barriers and self-consciousness. It was miserable. We asked random people in train stations that hopefully spoke English and trusted that they gave us good directions. I would come to find out later, that many people we came into contact with gave us horrible directions. But the first clue we solved led us to a historical building in the downtown square of Vienna. We took the longest route ever, and trying to navigate on a map with nearly impossible. We did not understand the system and I had no sense of North. When we arrived to the first challenge, it was a puzzle called bridges. Teams filtered in and out, but we could in no way, solve the puzzle. It was devastating. We were there for an hour and half trying with everything that we were to solve it. After an hour and a half we pitied and moved to our second mission. It was a park where our challenge was to carry our team mate through a "web" without touching the ropes. This challenge too took us over an hour to accomplish. The sun was beginning to set and other teams had already accomplish 4 or 5 challenges already. Our third challenge was a riddle at a government building which was fairly easy. But the time we were done, the sun was set and it was 8pm. No food. Still two hours of sleep. Frustrating. Wishing for home. We were called in, only finishing half of our tasks. Before finding our hostel, we had to compete a balloon challenge with the other teams. Losing team stayed behind while the winning team moved on. We lost three consecutive games, and the one we won was by default. I fell on my bunk at the hostel at 11pm. Filthy. Tired. Defeated.

What I struggled with that day was trusting my team. I did not want to lead. My thought was, I would never do this. I always plan. I was so focused on our teams weaknesses, and no recognition for any strengths. I was discouraged to say the least, not knowing how we could make it in the next three days. With that, I fell asleep.