Late September last year, I made a realization that would forever change my life: if I moved home after college graduation, I would be the only one of my siblings living with our parents.
I’m sure this doesn’t seem nearly as intense or earth shattering to you, but at the moment of discovery, my world shifted a little bit. All of the sudden, the idea of moving home with a college degree seemed like a much more serious issue. I scrambled for options, quickly landing on the idea of teaching high school English in Europe. Soon, I was hired and working very had to convince my family and myself that this was the right fit for me. After all, I studied English literature in school and, even though I swore I would never teach, it sounded impressive to me – besides, I loved saying, “I got hired to teach high school English at a missionary school in Budapest.” Seriously – what gets better than that?
Small issues kept popping up, though, little things that did not completely veer me off course, but confused me nonetheless. After the initial high and the rush I got from telling people about my impressive new endeavor, I lost any sense of peace that I thought I had. When I examined my heart, I found pride intricately woven between threads of other, better motives. That’s when I realized, that the issue wasn’t moving back in with my parents after graduation or teaching abroad with no teaching experience – the issue was my pride. I mean, I had always wanted to see the world and I did want to help others and I could serve God by teaching in Budapest, but I think that I was using His name to hide something really serious and ugly – my desire for status, to impress other, to play this game of life by my own rules.
So one January night around midnight, I applied for the World Race on a whim. I had known about it for a couple of years, but it had always scared me. It seemed like too much (of everything) and I thought that maybe I was not enough. Besides, it was so much money and a camping trip for eleven months?!? Excuse you, Jesus, but that is NOT me. On that night, though, I knew that Budapest was not where God wanted me or, if I was very honest with myself, where I wanted to be. I desperately wanted an adventure with magnitude and depth, a community to weave myself into, an experience that would completely alter my understanding of God. When I began to understand that, I began to understand that maybe the World Race wasn’t a little bit too much of everything and that even though I am NEVER enough for what God calls me to, He is. And that is the point – it’s the whole point, the perfect idea of how God works through His children, rotten and prideful though they may be.
I am overjoyed and terrified about this coming year. I have faith that so, so many amazing things will come of it – in my life, in the lives of my teammates and the people we meet abroad, in the lives of our friends and families back home – and I’m ready to dive in. However, I also know that my world will be rocked in a way that will make going home to the same life impossible. I see a massive change coming down the road and it is good, but scary. What choice do I have but to face it, head on and ready for whatever God brings?
This summer is a time of preparation, a time of training for me. I would love for you to join me, both as I get ready to leave on this whirlwind adventure and as I begin to understand what it is, exactly, that God has called me to do.
