Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

| by archiveworldraceblogs

Before the World Race, I rarely went
out of my way to meet people I didn’t know. Maybe it was because “people I
didn’t know” were always cutting me off on the highway, or making me pay
taxes, or discontinuing the Oreo Madness dessert at T.G.I.Friday’s, or creating
the movie “How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days,” or

stealing
all of my underwear and freezing them together in a bucket-sized ice cube
(actually, I knew that person, but it was equally annoying).

 
Here in Month 10, I can honestly say
… I kinda like meeting new people. Actually, I love it … especially when
they tell me they didn’t create the movie “How To Lose A Guy In 10
Days.”
 
Many of my favorite memories of this year have come from the
new friends I’ve met along the way. If I would have remained my usual
introverted self, I would have missed out on the following opportunities:

 

– Breaking the law in a certain
country by running around the city at midnight and taping Christian posters
wherever we could find a bare wall.

 

– Playing (and dominating) an obscure Chinese card game while
snacking on crickets and blueberry cheese puffs.

 

– Being presented with an
authentic game jersey and shorts by a member of the Cambodian national soccer
team (He may or may not have had a little too much to drink at the time, so I
hope he has a spare uniform).

 

– Cramming nine people into a petit,
five-passenger car on our way to Johnny Rockets, where we broke our three-day
fast over burgers, fries, and milkshakes.

 

– Fleeing from the Vietnamese police
(along with hundreds of university students) because our friends’ motorbikes
were parked illegally while we were getting coffee.

– Being pushed through “the devil’s house” (a.k.a “the gosh’s house,” a.k.a. a haunted house) as the girls screamed and the guys laughed while hockey-masked, horror monsters grabbed at us and clanged long blades against their prison bars.
 
I could go on, but you get the point. I love hanging out with people, hearing their stories, and finding out what their purpose in life is (because right now, I’m still trying to find mine. I think I’m getting close though).
 
But like I said, I wasn’t always like this. Before The Race, I avoided meeting new people like the plague. I was always awkward in those situations, and I concentrated more on filling the silence than I did on sincerely getting to know someone.
 
Before this trip, I envisioned myself making life-long friendships in every country, but that wasn’t happening early on. Don’t get me wrong, I made some great friends during the first four months of The Race, but my breakthrough didn’t come until December in Turkey.
 
During our first night in the country, I prayed that God would break my heart for the people of Turkey. That I would make new friends, not out of duty, but because I genuinely wanted to know and love the people God knows and loves (and I’m not just talking about Christians. Whether you believe in God or not, He knows you and loves you). That I would see people the way God sees them, with total love despite their weaknesses and imperfections.
 
And that is when things turned around. I’m not saying I’m Mr. Congeniality, because I’m still awkward at times and will probably always be. But God has given me a desire to know people, and listen to people, and love people … which is a desire I didn’t have when I left home back in August.
 
I guess I figure, if God is interested in every single person on this planet, and He takes delight in every single person on this planet, then maybe I need to get to know them better. I can attest that my life has been more blessed by the more new people I meet.