I remember the moment I found the World Race website.
Sitting in my kitchen after a long and wearying day of cardiac nursing in the spring of 2011, I stumbled upon a website describing a mission trip that seemed both amazing and slightly absurd. Two minutes into the promotional video that has hooked over a thousand young people hungry for Jesus, I felt like my every nerve ending had jumped to attention.
Six months later I rolled into training camp to some seriously enthusiastic people waving me towards the parking area and thought “Well at least there are real people here…that means it probably wasn’t a scam…”
I spent the week determined to blend into the background, terrified of the possibility of being made a team leader by the end of the week. I was careful not to draw any attention to myself, trying to reign in my more outgoing side a bit, unsure of what exactly they looked for in the first batch of “leaders”. I was already outside of my comfort zone and did not know in the slightest what I was getting into; the last thing I wanted was to be asked to lead any of these other crazy people.
E squad at training camp. I'm hiding in the back.
My plan worked, and I made it out of training camp unscathed, slipping peacefully into the role of team member under the incredible leadership of Pat Stiller.
Until the end of month 3, when my squad leaders told me the Lord had led them to ask me to team lead.
Oh for heaven’s sake.
But of course I said yes, having heard enough stories of how “Team leading is more refining than anything on the Race and it will grow you so much!” Great, fabulous, by all means make me the bad guy when several other adults disagree with my faulty decision making in any number of unpredictable circumstances.
I hit the ground running with a team I hardly knew, and had to immediately corral us all onto flights and buses from Nicaragua to LAX to Beijing to Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I was over it four days after I agreed to it. Thank God for Natasha and her naturally affinity for logistics.
Goofing around with the first team I led in Thailand.
For the next 7 months, I cried and prayed and laughed and had hard conversations and took a deep breath and got up and did it all again the next day. And a lot of World Race team leaders may read this and scoff, saying “It wasn’t THAT big of a deal.”
But to me it was a big deal. Sure I could have done the bare minimum and squeaked by, but the last thing I wanted was to let my team down. It mattered so much to me that they trusted me and knew that they could lean on me as their leader, and above all I had committed myself to God in this role.
I wanted to make a point to give my team members a chance to talk to me one on one, and to vent when they needed to or cry on my shoulder when it was all just too much. I wanted to stand up for them when hosts had unreasonable requests or their behavior was in question with higher up leadership, insisting that a behavioral breakthrough was on the horizon.
I wanted to be the one to drag them to the hospital at 1am if they were sick and pay for it myself if necessary, and to celebrate the day-to-day with encouraging notes and Cadbury chocolate bars. I wanted God to really teach me the meaning of “servant leader”, to love them deeply and to see them all through His eyes.
My last team of all women in Arusha, Tanzania.
Maybe it is the nurse in me, my inherent need to to see people go from their possible worst to glimpsing their potential best. By final debrief, there was no doubt that the members of E squad, and specifically my own team members, had changed and impacted my passions, desires, and ability to love in a deeper way than most people I served in local ministries.
I was definitely due for a season of rest when I got home. My sister likes to coyly remind me that my frequent response when initially asked about the Race was “It was so, so incredible, and I wouldn’t take it back for anything; but I would never, ever do it for a second time.”
Needless to say, my next major realization fairly blindsided me. Finally feeling peaceful and grateful for whatever God had next, I was praying about ideas and possibilities one morning and literally sprung off of the couch when “SQUAD LEAD!” seemed to slap me across the face.
I stared off into space with my mouth hanging open and thinking….no way, God. No. Way. I was quite sure I was understanding this wrong. Take on all that for a second time and voluntarily walk into a huge group of strangers and lead them? I would have been less surprised (and probably less afraid) if God had told me to move to the Arctic and share Jesus with polar bears.
Daniel, Joshua, and Leah, my raised-up squad leaders. Both of these pics always make me laugh.
But in that moment and the weeks to follow, there wasn’t a shred of doubt in my mind that it was time to step into World Race leadership once again. I felt so alive, so excited to be pushed to love and lead and serve in a way that threw me into a tail-spin with the unpredictability of it all.
And so, almost exactly 2 years after I signed on for round one, I got the call that I was being offered the opportunity to squad lead.
God seemed to wink at me as He stuck out His hand and said “Come on, Beffy, we will do it together. It’s time for round two.”
…click here for part two! http://bethanywaddell.theworldrace.org/?filename=my-next-big-thing
~Pinterest, and pretty much how I feel.~
