Five years ago, on a hot summer day in July, at about 10 in the morning I found myself in the middle of a staring contest with a ram. No. Not the Dodge kind. The wooly kind with horns. Dozens of pounds of hoof, horn, wool and unreasoning fury stared me down with round, glassy eyes. Oh, also, I was in the middle of someone’s living room. So on a scale from average office Monday to hang gliding with Swedish yodelers, this rated somewhere around watching Bill Murray belt out “La Bamba” in a crowded pub in terms of absurdity — not entirely unheard of, depending on what circles you hang out in, but still fairly odd and unexpected.
The beast locked eyes with me, I assume peering into the depths of my soul. It lowered its head and, with a snort and the stomp of a front hoof, charged across the room heading straight for my legs. I dove out the way, quick as you please, stumbling over my friends as I did, barely clearing the horns. Jumping to my feet, I whirled around to spot the ram, wherever it stopped, to keep it in my sights. Off in a corner of the room, a small North African boy barely controlled his laughter. “Let me guess, kid. I’m doing it all wrong,” I thought to myself. Indeed I was.
All around me my friends were busy grabbing sheep and rams and forcing syringes full of parasite-killing medicine down the animals’ throats. Meanwhile, I was busy figuring out exactly what the correct way is to wrangle a sheep or a charging ram, especially in the middle of a North African family’s equivalent of a living room. I’d been thinking about it all morning, ever since we started at about 8:30 when the local shepherds brought their flocks into town. As a result the best I had managed to do was get in the way of the rest of my team as they actually did the work.
This was the 4th day of a short term mission trip to a country in North Africa, the name of which I won’t reveal as per request of the long term missionaries who live there now. The other 3 days had consisted mostly of travel and bringing food and supplies to widows and poor families in the village where we now stayed. But this day was different. This day was sheep wrangling day. I had known it would be coming, but upon my first meeting with a sheep, seeing those gangly, fragile looking legs and those horns that looked like they could easily take an eye out with a swift, well-placed jerk of the head, I was paralyzed by uncertainty.
I didn’t want to do anything that would hurt the sheep. The sheep were the local shepherds’ livelihood, and our goal was to inoculate these animals with medicine to protect them from parasites and add a few kilos to each of them. This would translate into more money for the shepherds. We did this all for free with zero expectation of anything in return, though we did hope that perhaps, in addition to improving their lives, this act of kindness might open a doorway for deep, friendly relationships to form between the shepherds and the local missionaries. My other and equally important concern was that I did not want to injure myself. I specifically wanted to keep my eyes intact and away from the horns. I had never wrangled a sheep before and I had no idea how to go about immobilizing them or picking them up without avoiding either of my concerns.
My unfortunate Hamlet-like paralysis –
‘And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.’
– continued until lunch time, when I sat and munched on hummus and bread in silence, mulling over my predicament. I had been of no use at all that morning. I was so afraid of doing anything wrong, of making a mistake, that I couldn’t make a move without absolute certainty that I was doing the right thing. Then it dawned on me – sure, I had never a wrangled a sheep before and had only a vague notion of how to do it. Yes, there was the possibility of injury. But I had been brought to this country for a reason.
God had allowed everything in my life, and had certainly orchestrated most if not all of my life events, to lead up to this moment in the middle of a village in North Africa, thousands of miles from home. God brought me here for a purpose, and He had placed me in this exact position for a reason. Nothing happens in God’s creation without reason, even if we don’t know what the reason is. I was not there to be useless or to get in the way. God knew I had something to offer, even if I didn’t know it. So I resolved after lunch to stop letting myself be paralyzed by hypotheticals and to plunge headfirst into this task and trust that God would lead me and work through me to take care of the rest.
The very next flock to which we came, with my heart pounding inside of my chest, I said a quick prayer for guidance from God, leaped into the fray, tackled a sheep, and held it as medicine was forced down its throat. I began tackling sheep left and right (their legs fold like wooly lawn chairs when you pick them up) trusting in God to to give me the courage and wisdom to do this task well. At the end of the day I had personally wrangled over 200 sheep. It wasn’t because I had latent master wrangling skills. It was because God gave me the courage to trust in Him and I chose to give into that courage instead of continuing to give into my own uncertainty and fear. I chose to obey, and God took what little I had to offer of myself and multiplied it into a blessing for others.
What does this have to do with my reasons for doing the World Race? Well, I faced a similar choice when deciding to apply for this quest. I knew that I love adventure and travel and have a great desire to form deep and fruitful relationships with others, and I knew that the World Race seemed to have opportunities for all of that in spades. What I didn’t know was how it would all work out.
When would be the best time in my life to do this? How would I know it wouldn’t throw me completely off course in terms of starting a career? How or when would I ever be able to afford it? What would happen to my relationships with my friends back home if I spent almost a year abroad? How would I spend Christmas and Thanksgiving without my family for the first time? Would I be able to find a job quickly when I got back from the race or would I be penniless? What about insurance and phone bills and student loan repayments?
These are things I am still figuring out, and questions I ask myself each day. The answer is certainly not to ignore them. Nor is it to let the questions themselves prevent me from answering the call and seizing this opportunity. I have a unique set of skills and passions as a writer, a professional backpacker, an adventurer, a friend, and a follower of Christ. I want to put those skills and passions to use in service of others. I have prayed and asked God time and time again for a way to do that – a way to combine all of those things in service of His Kingdom, and His answer to me, for this moment in my life, is the World Race. Specifically, it is the 10/40 Window Route to which He has led me.
I was uncertain for a long time, and in some ways I still am. I deliberated about this for almost two years and prayed about it for almost as long. But He has spoken to my heart and asked me to trust Him as I did once in North Africa – to trust that He will provide and that if I step out in obedience He will run to meet me and He will take my meagre offering and make of it a blessing to others, even if I personally do not see the fruit of it.
In my heart I know I am ready and aching for another adventure – another season of learning to completely trust in God in ways I never have before. Those are the times I feel most alive. And I know that if I do step out in trust, somehow someway He will help me to join in the good work He is doing for the life of the world. As for my concerns, I know that if God wants me to do this then He will offer provision for those things if I seek it.
So why am I doing this? Because I trust God to take my skills and passions and use them through this World Race for the life of the world and the flourishing of people’s hearts and spirits. I also trust Him to help me put my affairs in order and take care of everything on the home front so that I can go on this journey. I cannot dream of a greater honor than to join in His work, or of a task for which I would be more unsuited if its success depended on my own merit. Thankfully it depends on God, and I know that Christ is strong enough to use even someone like me and shine through my weaknesses. In fact, He seems to have a peculiar predilection for using the least likely people (uneducated fishermen, tax collectors, accused prostitutes, etc.)
With all of that in mind and heart, I am saying “Here I am, Lord. Send me.”
