Like most of my life this is a really random story. I graduated from the College of Charleston in May with a major is psychology, a minor in Jewish studies and a plan to work for my college ministry, Campus Outreach. After graduation I had about a three week break before going down to Florida with Campus Outreach for our 9 week summer beach project. During this break the shift from the incredible community I had in college to home life really rocked me. About a week into it I was dying for something Christian to do and started rummaging through all of my stuff trying to find something to entertain myself.
The only thing I could find was a book I read in my discipleship group last semester. The book itself wasn’t very good, so I wont name it, but it is by an author I respect a lot (Steve Shadrach) and at the back of the book he lists 100 websites college students should visit. I was in denial about the whole graduation thing and decided I was still a college student, so I sat at my computer and started visiting random pages just trying to find something to pass the time.
Glancing down the very long list one name really stuck out to me- Adventures in Missions. Ok so if you know me I’m not exactly the most adventurous person, at least I don’t think so. My dad was a neurosurgeon and growing up he told me stories about kids not wearing their helmets while biking or skateboarding and breaking all their bones or scraping their faces off on their driveways (Too gruesome? Sorry… hence why the stories have stuck with me for 15 years). Anyway, I went to adventures in missions, clicked around, found the World Race and thought, huh, that looks cool. As I continued to read about the race I started to think, woa, this is REALLY cool! So I set the World Race as my homepage, shut the computer and tried to walk away.
When I became a Christian, I wasn’t searching for anything, I was just messing around, reading what I thought was an interesting book (the Bible)…. and trying to prove it wrong… and God found me. The World Race went kind of the same way. I wasn’t searching for a mission trip, I had my future all planned out- go on staff with my college ministry, at the College I went to for four years, in the greatest city ever, with the best friends I could ever imagine (pictured above)… and then the World Race found me.
After an hour of prayer, I applied for the January trip because, come on, October? That’s in less than 5 months! But God kept whispering to me to go, and soon that whisper, yup, grew into a roar, and I knew God wanted me to GO, in October, on the World Race, with a random group of strangers, with nothing familiar to me but Him by my side, and tangibly trust Him. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, I didn’t even know until after I got accepted that this involved backpacking! But I heard God calling and just jumped rite in. Good thing God knows what He’s doing… and that I’m His Adored Daughter. Well, CRASH of LOVE, here we go!
