I gave this speech yesterday at a Toastmasters Speech Jam – if you were there and wanted to comment on it, feel free to do that here! If you would like to contribute to my trip, you can click the Support Me! link to the left. If you would prefer I mail you a support letter, please e-mail me with your address. Thank you! –Angi
I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything. But I can do something. The Something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will. – Edward Everett Hale, founder of the Helping Friends Society
Fellow Toastmasters, and most welcome guests,
If you were offered the opportunity to travel the world, would you go?
There are a few conditions, so I want you to really think about these things.
You will be gone for one year, leaving your friends and family behind. If you are married, you can choose to take your spouse. But you don’t have to. Do you go, or are you too tied to these people?
You will not just be touring each country you visit. You will be living for a month in each place. Sometimes you will be in cities, more often in rural areas and you will never have 5 star accommodations. No Ritz Carlton, no QE2 style cruise ships. In fact, any hotel with hot, running water will become a luxury. You will become very familiar with camping. You will be living as the majority of people in that country live. Do you go? Or are you unwilling to give up your Tempur-Pedic mattress and goose down pillow?
You will not be on this journey alone. You will be accompanied by 4-6 strangers, at least to begin with – they will become your family for the next year. You will live with them, cook with them, eat with them and spend almost every hour of every day with them. Do you go? Or are you too afraid of living with new people?
Here is what gets most people. This is not a European Vacation. You will not have any say in which countries you visit. Your destinations are in South America, Africa, and Asia. Where you are going, your path can change in an instant, a tsunami, an earthquake, a new line on the political map – all can force you to move countries with a moments notice. Do you go? Or are you too afraid to relinquish control?
You will be fully immersed in each culture you encounter, working five, six, or seven days a week. You may have a choice between an orphanage and a field. You may find yourself in South Africa working in an AIDS clinic, or helping earthquake victims in Peru, or working in an orphanage in Cambodia, introducing a six year old to Crayola Crayons. Do you go? Or are you a point in your life where you prefer to work and experience life from your desk?
These are all questions I have asked myself in the last few months. And the answer I have come up with? I would go. And in fact, I am going. I am leaving in July on The World Race. Think, the TV show ‘The Amazing Race’ colliding with Habitat for Humanity and the Peace Corps.
I will literally be racing from country to country, and in each country I will be participating in 4 weeks of missions and ministry, helping out people in mostly 3rd world countries.
In all likelihood, I could end up living in any of the following countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Swaziland, Kenya, South Africa, China, Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines.
This endeavor means I have to give up many things here. As of July 1, my house will be rented, my car sold, my life packed into boxes and in some cases carted off by others at a yardsale. For the next year, my whole life has to fit in a backpack. Take a moment, close your eyes, and just imagine. What do you need for a year? Clothes? Computer? Pictures of family and friends? Sleeping bag, tent, pillow? A way to cook food… to purify water… plate, cup, bowl, utensils? Ipod? How many of you need to take your TV? Can you give up all of your favorite shows for a year?
I also have to fundraise $18,000 to participate in the World Race. This covers food, lodging, travel, and extraction insurance. It works out to a little over $1600 a month. Not a terribly large sum – about $50 a day. And I am looking to everyone I know to help me. This is not a weekend adventure, or a trifling diversion. This is something that stems from a place deep in my heart, calling out for me to be a part of something bigger than myself. Bigger than Holderness, and bigger than even Squam and New Hampshire. I am only one. But still, I am one. This is me, devoting almost a year of my life to service to others.
Winston Churchill once said that you make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give. Please, be only one. Contribute only enough for me to spend one day on the Race. Thank you.
