My philosophy is all about telling authentic adventure stories, so I'll be honest. This week has been pretty rough.
I left Snaefellsnes on Monday, on a bus bound for Selfoss where my next host would pick me up. That went smoothly, and that host family wasn't too bad! I was only spending three days there though. The first day, we had great weather, and spent the whole day harvesting and cleaning turnips. That was a new experience for sure! Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos here, as I wanted to devote the first day to being focused on learning, and planned to shoot photos the next day. The next two days though, the weather was terrible, and I spent the days sleeping and watching Netflix. It was nice to get some rest, but man I was getting bored.
The second morning, I made a hilariously annoying mistake I was asked to bring in the horses from the field. Easy enough, right? Well, they weren't behaving well, and getting them all corralled took like three tries. I got it done though! And then went back to bed. 10 mins later, a knock on my door from the other work led to me being informed that I had, in fact, brought in the WRONG group of horses. Whoops. Thankfully, that was more funny than it was frustrating.
On the third day, my new host was coming to pick me up. Late that afternoon, I started to get a weird feeling about it. I prayed about how I felt, and felt some peace, but as soon as I got in his car, I just started feeling all these weird vibes from him. It was hard to communicate, as his English wasn't the best, and something just felt off. The minute I got to his house, I was already searching for a new host. But until I found someone, I had to stick it out.
The next morning, it was time for a once a year event, where all the farmers bring in their sheep and sort them into the various farms. It was pure, fascinating chaos. I have never seen so many sheep. People were running around like crazy, grabbing their sheep by the horns and pulling them into their pens. I caught exactly one sheep, haha. It felt like a truly Icelandic experience, and I'm very thankful for it.
But the thing was, I was largely ignored, by my host especially. Despite the cool experience, I still needed to get out. I kept looking, sending emails making calls, etc. I was getting extremely stressed, and had to focus hard on keeping my cool. The redeeming factor is that I was befriended by an adorable kitten. Don't know what it's name was, but I'm pretty sure Jesus sent it to keep me company :)
I spent the next morning picking rhubarb in the pouring rain, as requested by my host. I wasn't happy there, but I at least wanted to honor the fact that he was giving me a bed and food.
The last straw at this place was when one of the older cats decided to pee in my suitcase, on all my clean clothes. For lack of a better word, I was extremely pissed. I told my host about it, and he begrudgingly helped clean up the mess, telling me I shouldn't have "kept the cat in my room." The door was open...
Anyway, enough about the crappy parts of the week. The same day as the cat incident, I got a message from my friend Julien, from Tradir, saying that he had a friend in the east looking for an extra hand. I talked to that guy over facetime, and he seemed pretty great. Far better than my current situation, at least. We arranged transportation, and the next morning I hiked 6km on the road with my suitcase to meet my ride. I tried to hitchhike, but I was unsuccessful.
I was picked up by Kristina, a Czech girl who was also going to work at this place, and Larry, who had used an Icelandic ride share website to find people heading his same direction. We had about a five hour drive ahead of us, and we made the most of it. We stopped at many famous waterfalls, glaciers, etc. It was so fun to finally see so many of these places I've imagined going to for so long.
Last night, after a mesmerizing sunset, we made it to the campsite/guesthouse where we're working. After a quick dinner, it was time for bed, as Kristina and I had decided to send a sunrise mission in the morning because the weather was looking good for once. And it was a sunrise to remember...
Okay. So let's talk takeaways. This week was really difficult up until the past 36 hours. The whole time, I was feeling stressed, frustrated, angry, and scared. The overarching creator of these feelings was the fact that I have absolutely nothing familiar to fall back on. It's not like I'm at a party that's going bad and I can just leave and drive home. No, I'm here for good, until my plane leaves in two weeks, and even then, it's another flight into the unknown.
I have to live entirely in the present, and when things go bad, I just have to sit in it until I can create a better plan for the future. And that is really, really hard, because the future is so uncertain, and last week, I had no allies. I just had to reach out to anyone and everyone who may be able to help. Thankfully, some allies came my way, and now I'm in a much better situation.
Last night, as I was journaling about the past few days, and thinking about what I was going to write in this blog post today, I was reminded about some words the Lord gave me late this summer:
"So long as we walk through life using the pursuit of God's plan as a compass, the right path will be revealed."
That rings so true in my present circumstances. I felt called to be in Europe, so I went. I know I'm supposed to be here, so I have to trust that things will go exactly as they are intended to, even sometimes I'm intended to struggle and suffer a little bit. If everything went smoothly, the stories wouldn't be nearly as good!
Thankfully, the place I'm at now feels much more comfortable, and the surrounding are BEAUTIFUL. This next week should be pretty amazing. I'm stoked to see what's in store.
The journey to the far side of discomfort involves a period where you are very stuck in the discomfort part. But, I made it to the far side, once again. And it was so worth it. I'm sure I'll be stuck there again at some point, but for now, I'm gonna enjoy the freedom.
For you this week: Think and pray about what God's plan for you is right now. Are you using that plan as a compass? Where is it leading you?
As always, chase your passions, stay stoked, love first, love relentlessly, and remember that fulfillment lies on the far side of discomfort.
Thanks for reading guys! Would love to hear your thoughts down in the comments. I'll see you next week!
- Zwiegs
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