For many, the new year is a time to set new goals, plan new adventures, and try new things. For me, it will be the year that I go into international missions work. I have been drawn to international social work and missions for awhile now and even looked into going after I finished graduate school but I didn’t feel like it was God’s plan for me at the time. Instead I came to Roanoke and God has used my time here to grow me and prepare me for this journey. In the past year I co-lead my first connect group (also known as a small group or bible study) and stepped into co-leading the service team at my church. Both roles have grown me and, I believe, prepared me for going on the world race before I knew I was going, or even knew anything about the organization and their mission work. I came to Roanoke without knowing anyone here and this forced me to go outside of my comfort zone in order to meet people and find community, and what a community I’ve been blessed with here. I am grateful for the support that community and all of my friends and family have offered me as I considered, applied for, and accepted the world race.
If you are already familiar with the world race, feel free to skim ahead, but for those who came to this page because they want to know about the mission trip I’m going on…
The world race is an 11th month mission trip to 11 countries. Some teams work with sex trade workers, some teams work with orphanages, sometimes they build roads, sometimes they help with medical care/prevention, sometimes they help rebuild communities after wars or genocides and more; each country has a different service focus, and each is based on the needs of the community served. There are long term missionaries and community members that connect to each team to help them know how they can best meet needs and how to build positive sustainable change. It’s all done for the love of Christ, for the idea of helping the orphans and the widows, and going to every corner of the earth.
My route (pending any changes) will leave in September 2015, I will go to:
Uganda
Rwanda
Ethiopia
India
Guatemala
Honduras
Nicaragua
Nepal
Malaysia
Thailand and
Cambodia
Service projects/issues I’m likely to be involved in include:
Sex trafficking (working with victims and prevention)-my route is very heavily tied to this issue
HIV/AIDS
Rebuilding communities that were victims of the LRA (Uganda) or the Rwanda genocides
Working with orphanages
Helping with street youth to find them food and shelter
Visiting widows and orphans
Fighting poverty
Slum ministry
And more.
(If you’d like to see longer descriptions of each country please feel free to visit the website: http://www.theworldrace.org/?tab=routes&subtab=sept-2015-5)
I’ll be posting leading up to my departure date and while in the field. I look forward to sharing this journey with all of you and am grateful for your support along the way. Thanks for being a part of this journey. I hope you all have a wonderful new year!
