Me And The World/Human Race

 

•Have you always been active in service/wanting to serve (church, community, school, etc.)?

C. S. Lewis writes, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” In Revelation, Jesus pointedly rebukes the lukewarm church, and I, reluctantly but with much conviction, include myself among the Laodiceans. I’ve always been active, but I’m not sure I’ve always been truly serving. It’s a hard line to write, but for most of my life I’ve been pretty caught up in myself. My definition of service has recently undergone significant renovation. In its sincerest form, service is worship, and worship is most acceptable when we offer to God everything we have and all that we are. That’s what I want now. I want to serve with every ounce-every fiber-of my being, with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. I’ve always had a heart for mercy ministries, whether it was sticking up for the kid being bullied, giving clothes to the poor, or offering hope to the hopeless. But my charity, however significant in my own eyes, was mostly out of surplus, when it was easy, comfortable, or popular, and less often out of the self-sacrifice characterized by the poor widow, who out of her poverty gave everything she had.  

•When did you first actively begin thinking about doing a World Race?

A friend introduced it to me during the ’07-’08 snowboard season. At the time I felt like I had it all together. I had a dream job. I lived and worked with my best friend. I had a nice car, dated a pretty girl, attended church regularly, and saved a lot of money. Perhaps you noticed, however, that ‘I’ was the subject of each one of those sentences. Or was ‘I’ the object? Either way, my life wasn’t Christ-centered and I was ready for a change.

•What triggered it?

 

•When you set out, what did you hope to accomplish?

Tree63 famously sings, “Every blessing You pour out I turn back to praise.”  I’m among the world’s wealthiest, healthiest, and most educated. My goal, hope, and prayer, was and is to glorify my King with these blessings. I wanted to spend the year abiding in Christ, fostering such an intimate relationship that I could no longer help but let Him permeate every facet of my life, from deciding what to buy at the grocery to shaping how I raise my family.

•Tell me about the race and what it has entailed so far.

On the surface, the World Race is an eleven-month mission trip through eleven different countries. Each month has its own distinct flavor, spiritual climate, and ministry needs. We live and travel in teams of six or seven, with each person fulfilling (and often discovering) his or her unique role within the church, whether it be preaching with conviction to a crowd of Maasai warriors, providing daily encouragement to the team through acts of service and words of affirmation, or noticing the Romanian child that everyone else overlooked.

•What countries have you been in?

 

•What countries will you eventually be in?

We are in the process of working out next month’s details. At the moment, it looks like we’ll be in Split, Croatia, working with a young couple who started a café ministry, but struggle to maintain it. We hope to encourage them and their ministry by volunteering shifts, establishing relationships with youth in the community, and drawing crowds to their café through social events and live American music. Whatever God sets before us. After Croatia, we plan to fly to Central America for our final two months.

•Tell me about your day-to-day activities, who you work with, etc.

I am living without any semblance of customary routine. Sometimes I don’t know even know where I’ll be sleeping the next day. The only structure in my life right now is God’s unfailing provision and guidance. As a team, whether we are tenting in an African desert or jumping from hostel to hostel in China, we try to maintain regularity in Christ. We pray together daily, regularly encourage one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, speak life into each other’s lives twice a week, and watch the latest episode of the Office whenever we find stable Internet.  

•Name two things you’ve learned about yourself since beginning the race.

I never before saw my introversion as a gift to embrace. Instead of being unsettled when feeling socially burnt out, I now recognize that my unique disposition (which demands relatively less human interaction to stay healthy) as something God can use to consecrate more of me to Himself. For example, if we’re walking somewhere as a large group, and I feel neither the need nor the craving to be immersed in conversation, I allow myself to float to the back and fall into intimate prayer or song with my heavenly Father.

I’ve also discovered that my blood is considered a ‘must try’ by various species of mosquito worldwide. You might be thinking to yourself, “Yeah, I’ve been to tropical climates and I hate mosquitoes, too. I can relate,” but you would be wrong. No one can relate to me. I have observed with severe scrutiny as they harmlessly bizzer and tizzer around an equally attractive human being, and I stare with literal incredulity as they invariably leave that person’s presence and travel halfway across the room to take a stab at my ankle. 

•Name two things you’ve learned about the human race since beginning the race.

Primarily, I’ve been blessed with seeing the world through a variety of lenses. We have different colors and customs, but when it all boils down, we’re really not so different. We all laugh and smile; we all have the same hungers, the same needs, the same yearning for love. We all desperately need God.

Also, there seems to be one universally accepted, worldwide language, and let me assure you, English is definitely not it. The language I refer to is ‘football,’ known to we unenlightened US Americans as ‘soccer.’ Regardless of culture, tribe, political stability, or economic standing, the human race loves watching eleven guys kick a ball at eleven other guys.

Let me share with you just one such example from the church I served in Kenya. The church isn’t perfect. It isn’t rehearsed. And it isn’t pretty. In fact, it’s very ugly. Most of the church members show up with crude bottles of glue shoved between their teeth so that they can inhale the fumes without using their hands. Many of the men are either aggressive or severely drugged, with sluggish red eyes and drooling lips. One woman passed out on the floor during worship, and her two-year old daughter spent the rest of the service climbing on her motionless body. There are serious illnesses and infections everywhere. The majority of the church body consists of street children without homes, families, or jobs.

 

•When is your race finished?

•Plans for after the race?

I desperately want to take hold of the growth I’m experiencing on
the mission field. I want to share my passion for the Bible with family
and friends. I want to spread my growing desire for intimacy with
Christ to the local churches.  I can hardly wait to apply eleven months
of godly fellowship to my current and future relationships back home:
to better honor my family, to further challenge my friends, and to
better love my future wife…