For the past 2 years, I have seen several posts on all your social media accounts about this thing called The World Race. What is it?
The World Race is an 11 month program where participants travel to a different country each month (#11n11). We spend anywhere from 3-4 weeks in each country doing volunteer work. The program itself belongs to Adventures In Missions, which is a non-profit, interdenominational, Christian-based organization. Therefore, all the work we do stems from a desire to see lives transformed by God’s unconditional love. We do this by partnering with local organizations, ministries, and churches for the month and coming alongside them, doing whatever they need help with for that period of time. We provide extra sets of hands, feet, and warm bodies. It’s a great way to meet people from the area and introduce them to Jesus. As a result, no two months look the same. When I was a participant last year, I did everything from teaching English, to babysitting, to building a cement fence, to inviting women out of prostitution and offering them an alternative lifestyle. It gets pretty eclectic.
So you, yourself, did the program just last year. Where all did you go and what was that like?
I did. I was gone January through November. In that time, I was able to visit Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Thailand, Myanmar (just for a day), Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Africa, and Swaziland. It was quite a whirlwind experience. I got to meet people from all over the world from different cultures, races, creed, religions, economical classes, etc. I experienced some of the best moments of my life, thus far, but also some of the hardest and worst.
Is the program really that difficult?? I mean, based on what I see on social media between playing with kids and riding elephants and getting to travel the world, it seems to me it would be more like a vacation than serious work.
If I’m being honest, I had a similar mindset when I started out. As a lover of traveling, I thought I struck gold. But I quickly learned, you can hardly call it a vacation. You see, more often than not, the work we do is not physically demanding. (Although when it was, I was sore for days ha-ha.) In reality, most of the work we do is more emotionally-based, and all of it is 100% driven by a desire to impact people on a spiritual level (a level beyond the emotions, that gets to the heart of a person). We seek the quality of outcomes more than the quantity. For example, feeding 100+ kids every day for lunch at a feeding center is excellent. Truly, it is. But I want more than excellent. What I want to know is that in addition to a full stomach, did that child feel safe, accepted, radically loved and cared for? If not, I accomplished very little that day in terms of the bigger picture. I don’t just want to give away food. I want to give a person hope. Hope that whether or not I’m there to feed them, God is still taking care of them. He will provide their needs, not me. I’m just a vessel that He is using. I’m a temporary fix, but God…He is eternal.
That’s where is becomes both wonderful and difficult. I asked God to show me what His love for people really looks like. “Break my heart for what breaks Yours” is what I asked Him. And He did. When dealing with people on an emotional/spiritual level, I was able to not only rejoice in their celebrations, but I was also there alongside them to grieve in their sufferings. I saw the good, the bad, and the ugly. I learned that love isn’t always easy…but it is worth it.
Would you say then that The World Race changed your life?
Technically, no. The World Race was merely a tool used to get my attention. I can sincerely say it was God who has radically changed my life. See, I’ve been a “Christian” my whole life. There hasn’t been I time I personally didn’t believe that God existed. I’ve always known of Him. Last year while I was gone though, something happened. It’s like for the first time in my life, I actually met Him, face-to-face. He was no longer this Thing I read about in a book or this person someone else told me about from a pulpit. He became real.
God knows I have a passion for travelling, meeting people, hearing different languages being spoken, interacting with different cultures, the whole nine yards. The World Race was the perfect place for Him to make an overwhelming impression on my life. The whole experience became this outward metaphor for what was happening internally, spiritually. It was my Damascus Road. But to say The World Race is solely responsible for the change in my life would be selling short both the 7 billion other people in the world that don’t get a chance to experience it and God’s power in meeting people right where they are in their own, individual lives.
That said, why are you doing the program for a second time? What do you hope to gain?
Like I said, the program was a tool God used to transform my life. So many elements of the program set the stage to put faith and trust in God into action. For example, take the topic of finances. I can say “God will provide.” But when I quit my job and lose the security of a paycheck, then I really start to find out if I actually believe what I say. In the grand scheme of life, why is that so important? Who really cares if little ‘ole me really believes God will provide financially? Answer: The people I encounter who are desperate to see their needs provided for financially. How much more weight do my words have when I personally have experienced and seen God provide for me?
That’s just one of several ways the program challenges its participants. We intentionally live a life of abandonment. We choose to give up our time, comforts, and stuff in order to understand a different way of living. And I can’t begin to tell you how sobering it is to be out there in the world and know that while it is a choice for me, for so many, it’s their reality. It messes me up. Every. Single. Time. However, at the same time, I met people last year that had NOTHING, and yet because of their faith in God, they had EVERYTHING. It completely changed the way I viewed wealth, and stuff, and what I thought was important.
That’s what I want for this next group of World Racers. As one of their leaders for the first 5 months of their World Race, I’m saying that want to be a part of each of their own, unique World Race journeys. I want to be the one walking beside them when they see God reveal Himself to them in new ways. I want to be a friend they can laugh with and a shoulder they can cry on. I want to have the task of spending countless hours talking to God about them and then getting to encourage them personally. This isn’t a job to me. This is an honor and privilege to be a part of 52 individual journeys.
The best way I know how to repay God for the love, peace, joy, and freedom He brought to my life is to pay it forward.
Words cannot express how much it means to me to have so many of you follow me and support me over the past 2 years. In the next 6 months, I will be traveling to Albania, Romania, Malawi, Zambia, and Thailand (with opportunities to go to Ecuador and Chile next year) leading a new generation of World Racers. This continues to be volunteer work so I am once again fundraising and asking for prayers. If you would like to donate financially, click the “Support Me” link on this page. If you would like to keep up with blog posts, click the “Subscribe for Updates” link.
