I guess the best way to start this journey is to explain how I got here in the first place. Because to be honest it was a journey in itself getting to the journey. The first time I heard about the Race was last November from a complete stranger. I was walking down the hall of my dorm floor, and admittedly I had just finished what seemed like my 5th coffee and was buzzing with a sugar rush, when I see this big backpacking backpack connected to a stranger with an even bigger smile. Giving credit to my sugar rush I yell down the narrow, long hall, “HEY! What are you doing?!” She graciously explained that she was just passing through Missouri to visit a friend before she left for the World Race. She explained that it was this amazing missions trip where they would spend eleven months in eleven different countries. My very first instinct was just jump on this opportunity and ask how I could be apart of this. But, for what I think is the first time in my life, I held back from my first instinct and asked instead I how could help and support her through her trip. We exchanged contact information, prayed together and left with promises to stay in touch.
It’s been eleven months since that encounter and my friend Rachel is nearing the end of her trip overseas. We kept to our promise and stayed in touch. I have continued to see her posts of her wonderful adventures in foreign countries and the wonderful people she’s been able to meet and minister to.
In the time after Rachel and I met the idea of the Race kept coming up in my mind, but I would quickly push it aside with my excuses to back me up. Excuses like; obligation to family members, I needed to finish school, and the biggest one being financial.
Well this past summer I had the privilege of working at Camp Como in Colorado surrounded by some of the best God-fearing people who were amazing at challenging each other and keeping one another accountable. Through many conversations about adventures and doing courageous things for the Lord I began looking at my excuses again. Slowly but surely, it seemed that the Lord was offering answers to each excuse I could ever have. The biggest excuse, financial, was answered the day one of my friends said, “Ya know, when it comes to ministry I never expect to have a ton of money. But I trust the Lord will provide for me my daily bread.” That day I found some internet in a town somewhat nearby and applied for the Race.
Shoutout to this wonderful people on one of our last hikes (Some wonderful people not pictured).
Because of some amazing people that happened to come into my life at the right time, I’m doing something for the Kingdom that I never thought I’d have the guts to do. And I can’t wait to meet some more amazing people who will push me and teach me things that I never would had dreamed of if I had remained reluctant.
