Ok so picking up where I left off.
I moved to Murfreesboro, TN about 3 years ago.
I started going to a College group called The Gathering about 4 years ago.
The Gathering has been a huge catalyst in furthering my walk with Christ.
A couple years back one of the girls from The Gathering decided to take on The World Race and made a presentation on it at The Gathering one night.
I remember watching her presentation and thinking to myself, “Wow. She’s crazy. There’s no chance I’d ever want to do that and how much money does she have to raise?!”
And I feel like I know myself at least a little.
But God knows me better.
Just a few months ago I was perusing facebook.
Very original pass-time.
But while I was scrolling down the long list of stuff I really don’t care about I saw a bright red post that caught my eye.
It was from someone that I hadn’t talked to in years and hadn’t seen anything about in an equally long amount of time.
The post was about The World Race and her acceptance.
I decided to look into this a little bit more.
I went to the website and started looking through the blogs, reading about others experiences.
Malaria, dengue fever, no air conditioning, 800% humidity, 95F temps, mosquitoes, no beds, 24 hour bus rides, 48 hour travel days with no sleep, PB&J every meal, no TP, no showers, and the list goes on.
Haha, ya this isn’t for me.
I can’t stand even being a little bit too warm when I go to sleep.
Mosquitoes are the bane of my existence.
I’m allergic to having malaria.
A few days go by.
I decide to check out some more blogs, what other ways do these guys torture themselves?
And then I get to it.
A story about a little girl in Thailand sold into sex slavery.
I don’t know why but that hit me hard.
I went on.
More stories come up.
Poor.
Aids.
Sick.
Dying.
Widowed.
Forced Prostitution.
And it didn’t stop there.
I nearly cried.
It started to hit me that this stuff I’m reading, it happened.
And I continue reading.
And I notice that these stories have something in common.
Freedom.
Healing.
Grace.
Forgiveness.
LOVE.
I kept reading.
I was hooked.
I officially became a World Race blogstalker.
If you are part of the World Race, I’ve probably creeped on you.
I couldn’t let this stuff go.
But there was no way I could do the stuff these guys were going out into other countries to do.
There are things I’ve done that just don’t go away.
I’m unqualified.
I’m just not good enough.
“You are good enough.”
“This is what you were made for.”
“This is why you’re here.”
“You have a heart to love and to heal.”
“So go do it.”
I pray, stalk some more, and partially fill out the WR application.
And I get doubts.
You think too much of yourself.
No one is going to support this.
What about school?
Your job?
Your plans?
And I pray again, “God, If this is what you want just give me some encouragement.”
The next day I get a call.
“Hi Jeremy, This is Austin from The World Race… I see you have a partially completed application… I just wanted to give you some encouragement to finish it and send it in so we can get you started.”
Knock. Knock.
Who’s there?
God.
That was it.
I was floored.
I completed my application and sent it in.
And I waited.
I was confident.
Confidently scared that I wouldn’t get accepted.
Then I was supposed to have my phone interview.
I had it all together.
They could ask me anything and I’d have a great answer.
And then I got the call.
It’s like someone scrabbled my brain.
I don’t think I’ve ever stuttered or been so tongue tied in my life.
There’s no way they’d accept me now.
And to top it all off I had to wait two weeks to find out for sure if I got accepted.
And two weeks turned into three.
And by the end of the three weeks I was sure that was it and I hadn’t been accepted.
Right about that time I got a call while I was at work, “I just wanted to congratulate you and tell you that you’ve been accepted to The World Race July Route 1!”
I about had a heart attack.
Good thing I work at a Hospital.
What have I been waiting for these past few years?
Reliance on God.
Abandonment of this life I’ve grown so accustomed to.
To be broken and put back together the right way.
To be made new.
I’ve been waiting for The World Race.
And it’s going to rock my face off.
Heck it’s already started.
That was about a month ago.
Since then it’s been a couple weeks of getting things finalized followed by a couple weeks of figuring out how to explain this to people and plucking up the courage to tell them that I need help.
Trying to decide how I’m going to blog, how to blog to begin with, and what to blog about.
And now you’re here.
Reading my blog.
I can’t really put into words how excited I am to go through this experience and how thankful I am for those of you that are seeing it through with me.
I hope some of what I write about speaks to you personally.
I’m going to do my best to be real and open with you guys.
I want you to know what’s going on and I also want you guys to feel comfortable approaching me about things or asking questions.
I’ll answer anything.
Try me.
I hope that these past couple posts have helped you understand a little about where I’m coming from and how I got here.
There’s just another blog or two of things that I feel I need to get on here just to have my a good base of who I am and what this is and in the meantime I’m working on a couple blogs that are actually about spiritual related things.
I’ll have those up soon.
Thanks for being so patient and thank you so much for reading and sticking with it!
God bless you guys.
