Near the end of every World Race Training Camp, each individual squad has what leadership calls the “’Yes’ Moment”. During this time, each Racer signs a contract that binds them to adhere to rules, guidelines, and expectations that come with being a World Racer. The Racers then hand their contract to a member of the leadership team and verbally say “Yes” to Adventures in Missions, The World Race, and everything it entails. It’s relatively big moment at Training Camp, as at least a dozen of my squadmates posted a picture of all of I-Squad huddled together after we gave our “Yes”. It was a moment full of pageantry, hopefulness, and dreams of the unfathomable adventure that laid before us.
But there is a second “Yes” moment that all Racers face, at one time or another, and I’m not referring to the moment we renewed and re-signed our “Yes” contract at this most recent debrief. This moment is much less heralded, doesn’t come so smoothly, and isn’t nearly as instagram-worthy. I’ll go into that a little more after I share with you how that moment came about for me.
Last month our team, paired with another from our squad, was placed in Livingstone, Zambia for Month 5 of the World Race. I had never been to Africa before that time; and to be quite honest, I never really had a desire to. If I’m being candid, the Africa portion of my World Race was a time I was just planning to “put up with” because it was sandwiched between two regions that I had always wanted to go to (Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia). Not to say I was going to just check out for those three months, but I wasn’t pumped about going.
We lived in a former school building for the month, spending our mornings at a home for the elderly and our afternoons playing futbol with the local kids. Now just to have some context on how I felt about that, I had no idea how to interact with the elderly, especially when we don’t even speak the same language, and the idea of being mauled by 30+ children every day was quite high on my list of things I normally take a hard pass on. On our second day in Livingstone, as a nice “Welcome to Africa” present, I ate some local fare that my body didn’t appreciate too much. I spent the following night with a fever, chills, an achy body, and a fair amount of thoughts considering whether or not I actually had malaria. Fortunately the following morning, the malaria-like symptoms had fled. Unfortunately, what remained were still the effects of some sort of stomach bug that had some good fun wreaking havoc on my body. Once that had worked its way out of my body, it was only supplanted by some form of heat exhaustion caused by extreme dehydration and (I’m assuming) my body failing to adjust to the 95 degree African heat after spending the previous month with temperatures in the 40s. I spent the following 48 hours unable to leave my plastic-wrapped mattress, and sweating through multiple pairs of clothes. All of this culminated on December 9th, or, as I have now dubbed it, my worst day of the World Race. I laid on my mattress that entire day overheating, exhausted, depressed and having legitimate thoughts about calling this whole thing off and grabbing the first flight home.
The next morning I came to the realization that I had a decision to make. I could look at every reason why I didn’t want to be there, and let that define my perspective; or I could focus on the commitment I made to the World Race when I signed that contract and the calling I received from the Lord to be here, and let the rest of the chips fall where they may. For me, the second “Yes” came at the ugliest possible time. It came when every fiber of my being wanted to scream “NO” with all of its might. It came when I was absolutely at the end of my rope.
From that day forward, every single morning I told myself “today you say ‘yes’ to this team, this ministry, and to the World Race”. Some days those words came out smooth as silk. Other days they came out like a 2-ton block of lead. But through that, came the most beautiful thing. I can honestly say that every day after December 9th, I made the most of my time in Zambia. By making myself aware that I had the choice to be “in”, it completely changed how I approached every day. By the end of the month, I was connecting with the residents by playing them music, and I was allowing the kids at our futbol camps to climb on me like a human jungle gym.
My first “Yes” was born through anticipation and excitement. My second was born in controversy and desperation. The first “Yes” is important, make no mistake. I wouldn’t be here without my first “Yes”. But the second “Yes” is vital to making it through this crazy, beautiful, painstaking, difficult, wonderful journey called the World Race.
