I write this as I am siting in my office chair waiting for the clock to say 5:00 so that I am free. My boss this month just came by and said to stop what I was doing for the day and just sit until the clock turns 5. And so that is what I am doing. Waiting, thinking, wishing.
This month we are volunteering at an organization called St. Nicholas Home. St. Nicholas Home is a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting and serving the blind and visually-impaired community. Their programs work in many ways with the visually impaired. A couple of those programs being vocational training, converting books into braille and Early Intervention for children living with visual impairments and other disabilities. Sounds awesome, right?
My role in all of this is to sit in a chair. To sit in this chair behind my computer, googling numbers and calling churches. I haven’t been behind my computer as much as I have these last two weeks the entire Race. I have also never tried to communicate with this many non-English speakers on the phone… EVER. (and I wouldn’t suggest it) And I have also never felt so out of my element. I understand what people mean when they hate their 9-5 job. I am just trying to make it through each day, worn from energy, and just ready to clock out. This is not what I thought I signed up for.
But this is the World Race. This is life. My teammate and I were talking this morning about how some of the things we have done are not what we pictured to be doing. I think a lot of times through social media we get this idea that people’s lives are way cooler than they are in reality. I am guilty of it. Not only that but the trip I am on specifically sometimes it is looked at an adventure. I get so many people messaging me and telling me how awesome my life is. Now, I do want to say that my life is awesome, and I am so thankful for this experience. But I am here to tell you that it’s not an adventure all the time. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
You may say, “I love all the pictures you post.” But let’s be honest when I post what I am really doing no one likes it. We live in a time that the pretty things sell. And I am the first to say that I love that about us. I love that we love the pretty things, the good things. I think it’s a gift. And you better believe I have done some cool things. I have jumped off a bridge, saw one of the 7 wonders of the world, hiked to amazing points, swam in two different oceans. I’ve seen giraffes, elephants and zebras in the wild, and traveled to 4 different continents. That’s cool.
But I have also had a lot of days that I didn’t want to get out of bed. Days that I didn’t want to get online because I had nothing to update people on. These days happened when I didn’t want to move rocks again, or sit in a cubicle, or walk around the community. Days that ministry was to sit in a school in Zambia watching as a teacher disciplined her students more than she taught them. Or the days that I didn’t want to work in the heat, or paint, or tutor kids anymore. There are so many days that I have wanted to give up. To throw in the towel and say this is not what I signed up for. I signed up to change the world. I signed up to do great things.
But truth is, the World Race is not that. Some people have awesome stories to share. Stories of life change, casting out demons, or healing. Some people have stories that where God had them in that moment changed everything. Some people start a small ripple in a community that has the potential to change that community. But that hasn’t been my Race (from what I can see.) And I realized today that I am okay with that.
This all doesn’t surprise me though because I have done missions before. I know what effective work looks like. When I think back to the reason I came on the Race it was not to make an impact in the communities I was going to. Some may have a hard time with that truth but honestly you can’t make much lasting change in a month and I knew that. That was actually one of the reasons I almost didn’t do the Race. But instead I came on the Race because I wanted the community, the challenges and the lessons. I wanted the hard stuff because I knew that was going to be the change. I knew that I was going to have these days and these months that I just don’t see the glamour in it at all.
I will tell you right now if you are signing up for the World Race hoping for an adventure and non-stop communion with God, don’t sign up. Just close your browser. Drop that expectation. Because the World Race is not all the instagram posts or cool blogs you find. I thought I would be writing cool blogs yet I have struggled to even write a blog worth posting. You know the ones that sell and get shared. I wanted that Race. I wanted my pictures to capture all the beauty that I have seen and get shared on social media. I wanted to be that ideal Racer. (whatever that means anymore I don’t know). I wanted to do the cool things that would make it look that much better. That much bigger. That much more like an adventure.
But that’s not reality, and my race is much more than that. My Race is a bunch of little moments merging together changing me slowly into the person I want to be. My Race is the slow unraveling process of the things that God wants out of my life. My Race is about the constant community. The learning to love your teammate through their quirks and seeing the true love of God when your teammate loves you even when you are grumpy for the 6th day in a row. My Race is those unexpected amazing conversations with teammates that take you so much deeper into the way they experience the world. My Race is not the most glamorous or beautiful. But I have seen change, and that’s in me.
I want to tell you that when you go on the Race that you are going to change the world. I really want to tell you that, but I just can’t. It’s simply not true. But I do want to tell you that you can change your world, you can change your teammates world all because God changed you. And really that’s what the World Race is about. It’s about YOU and GOD. It’s about loving God which allows you to love your teammates, which then allows you to love yourself. And truthfully changing ourselves is the first place we need to look if we expect to change the world.
So go, go on the World Race, get your life wrecked for so many things and allow it to change you. Invest in your teammates, in feedback, in your hosts and really start diving into the things that hold you back. And when you are done, then ask God how you can help him change our world. Because without him at the center, you just can’t do it.
