The first time I heard about the World Race was my first semester at UT, visiting a campus ministry called the Texas Wesley. One of the graduating seniors was leaving on the Race in January. During my second semester, I had a strange dream where I absolutely knew I was on the World Race, and felt overwhelming love and support and fulfillment. When I woke up, my immediate thought was, “I’m never going to do anything like that!” and quickly moved on. Little did I know that in two short years, I would be applying for the Race.
The story of how I ended up here is all tangled up with the story of my last eighteen months, and the story of my time in El Salvador. There’s no way I’m going to do all of it justice in one short blog post, so please know that this is not the whole story. There is more to tell and more to live.
It has been a long, dry season. I have posted less and less on my blog for a variety of different reasons, but the largest one being I had no more words to say. In the past eighteen months it has often felt like God has taken me apart and put all of the pieces back in different places. The words I longed to say to my friends, to my family, and to the Lord were misplaced and I didn’t know where to look for them. For several months over the summer, everything about my life was quiet, from my faith to my physical world.
But that quiet summer was preceded by two weeks in El Salvador with the Wesley, where I got to watch as my friends became the hands and feet of Jesus. We spent our days painting, mixing cement, and cleaning bat poop off walls at the Shalom Children’s Home in San Salvador. At night I saw Jesus working in pick-up soccer games, silly skits, and the friendships made between American college students and Salvadoran children.
The first week in El Salvador was frustratingly difficult for me. The equatorial landscape reminded me of Kenya, and my mind was flooded with memories of a time when the Lord was so close to me I could hear him. I was praying so hard for answers but, for a variety of reasons, I felt isolated.
Three days before we left El Salvador, our team met for a final debriefing session to share our joys and frustrations with the trip. We prayed together, speaking out our highs and lows, and I sat surrounded by friends and poured out all my anger to God. When I was done, I started thinking about all of the laughter and happiness I’d felt in those two weeks. All the times I’d gone to bed sweaty and exhausted but feeling light as air. The ways the Lord was moving in spite of the circumstances in the orphanage and in my soul.
Joy lit me up like lightning- for the briefest of moments, like a flash in the night sky.
It would be easy to describe that moment as a mission trip high, and I’m tempted to. But it wouldn’t be fair to write it off so quickly. When I came to El Salvador, I had been hoping to just have an okay time. Instead, for just a second, I felt the same love and joy I had felt in my dream about the Race. My soul was still dry and thirsty, and I took that moment and the seed it planted in my heart home with me to Austin.
I spent the summer praying about the Race. I talked to my friends and mentors, and I’m pretty sure I read every World Race blog posted in the month of July. This had never been in my plan, but it felt so right. Peace that I hadn’t felt in over a year settled like snow.
The drought in my soul is finally ending, slowly. The Lord is coming back like the subtle sweetness in papaya, like dew on a desert morning, like a still-quiet voice.
So I’m going on the World Race because God told me to. That’s the simplest way to say it, and it has the virtue of being true. But I’m also going because I believe in the promise of joy after the dark night, which is to say I believe in the Resurrection. I’m going because the Lord has called us to an abundant life, one where joy can light you up like lightning and the fruits of a desert faith can be harvested in a joyful spring.
