Questions & Answers Part 2
1. Was it everything you expected it to be?
No. It’s not, but that’s because I placed expectations on the Race. Expectations is definitely something I’ve learned a lot about. We bring them into everything we do, and it’s not a bad thing, but unvoiced or unrealistic can cause us a lot of hurt.
In month 1, my expectations (because I had never been on a mission trip) was that I’d be sharing the gospel every single day, and that’s not what it was. Instead I was teaching english in a school where even the teachers who were teaching it spoke very broken english. Sharing the gospel was more about the light I was to them and how I loved them. I had to share Christ by how I loved and how I acted. We did share the Gospel that month, but it wasn’t every day, not how I expected.
2. What would you say has been some of your biggest challenges and how do you feel you have been able to conquer them?
Team. Team has been a big challenge. That should seem obvious, I’m living with 5 other people 24/7. You don’t get very much time to yourself, you’re dealing with a lot of drama at times, you have to figure out feedback. Team is hard. It’s a challenge.
There’s times when you want to check out. You don’t want to opt in, press in, say yes or choose them. You don’t want to fight because you feel unseen, unheard, unwanted, un-something. A lot of this comes from lack of sleep, a bad day, lack of time with the Lord, lack of introvert time. It comes from a lot of things, but it’s those moments, the moments where I want to just check out, that I remember this moment at Training Camp.
That moment I’m talk about was this moment before we found out our team assignments. We were handed our Racer contract and told to read through it, to actually spend time reading through it and praying about it. If we felt like we couldn’t follow it or say yes to each and every person on our squad, then we needed to know now and not sign this contract. As racers went up and signed their contracts, they formed a line that each person went down. What we said to each person we passed was “Yes, I choose to say yes to you in the good moments and the crappy moments” and then gave them a hug. It’s this moment I look back to and how I made a choice that day to say yes to these people I live with and I promised them that.
3. What advice would you leave/give to future World Racers?
This is a good question. I could give a lot of advice, and if you are thinking about doing the Race or are preparing for it please shoot me an email I’d love to talk to you and pray for you. But for myself I know it’s easy to come to Training Camp and leave Training Camp different. You experience a lot at training camp. It’s rough, it’s draining in far more ways than I could ever say. It’s an experience that I both never want to experience again, yet would do it in a heart beat because of the change that came. But through that experience it’s easy to gain the mindset that our growth started with the Race and we start believing that our growth will end with the Race as well.
That’s a lie. The growth we experience over the Race is amazing, but our relationship with Christ and our growth in that relationship didn’t start at training camp or with the Race, it started long before we ever accepted Christ as our Savior and it’s not going to end with the Race either.
4. How has this mission trip changed you or impacted you as far as future mission work?
This mission has definitely changed my view on short term mission trips. As I said previously, I had never been on a mission trip but I’d heard stories. After being with so many hosts and talking with them I have been able to learn how hard short term teams can be on them if done poorly. Sometimes the aspect of the trip is on the team’s growth and not how they can truly help the missionaries on the field. Or they create their own plans and not come along to help the missionaries ministry that is already set up. They leave the ministry host’s burnt out and more tired. This is definitely something that I will help change in trips I continue to do after the Race.
5. What is missions to you?
Missions is more than a missions trip. It’s more than sharing the Gospel overseas. It’s more than the box we put it in. Missions is essential for all of life. It’s part of each and every day, or it’s supposed to. Bringing Kingdom doesn’t happen just overseas, it happens where our feet are at.
6. What is your favorite memory from the Race?
I have many, but Langkawi Malaysia was a beautiful place. Being able to soak in the beauty, the most gorgeous blue ocean I’ve ever seen and being able to go snorkeling was a tremendous experience.
7. What was your most memorable Jesus encounter?
Philippines was a very memorable Jesus encounter month. That month I got to share my testimony to over 500 students at a University in one day. I’m not a public speaker, but I was that month. I got to see just how much God was present in the conference/event that was put on, in all the school witnessing ministry we did, just in all of the ministry we did that month really. It was huge.
I also experienced Jesus is a more harsh way that month as well. That month was hard for me in many ways. I played the roll as the demon for the Life House skit at the Conference and it brought back all the lies I believed that I was the problem in people’s lives or I had made them do this or that. It was amazing to walk through that and see the truth that God shed through it all.
Another hard aspect was a team time we had there where we shared how we saw each other’s hearts. I got some hard feedback and I didn’t receive it the greatest. My mind twisted the words of my teammates and told me I hadn’t changed at all during the 4 months of the Race, but in reality what I was seeing was a person that had done several circles around where I was and was closer to the person God has created me to be, but it just appeared that I was back to where I was or hadn’t really changed. Realizing that, that change isn’t going to be all at once and it’s never going to end really helped with that.
8. Are other cultures more or less receptive to the Gospel?
I’ve seen both in a way. In Asia it’s hard to share the Gospel because it doesn’t get heard. It’s lost because of the idolization of white people to them. In the Philippines there were lines constantly to get a picture with one of us on my squad. We’d constantly see people pointing, gawking or catch them trying to get a selfie with us in the background. Knowing us made them popular.
Zambia is called a Christian nation (it’s like America in that way), but what that means is that if you ask someone if they go to church or are a Christian or know who Jesus is, they’ll say yes to each of them. It’s awful, because most of them really don’t, they just say these answers because that’s what the government says. We did door to door evangelism here and it was amazing how open they are to letting people come in and talk, but we definitely had a lot of work to do in explaining that it’s not about do’s and don’t’s but about a relationship.
9. How do you cope with missing family/friends?
Sometimes it’s easier than others. After the initial first few weeks it definitely gets a lot easier. Holidays, birthdays, weddings (especially weddings) are all hard things to miss and make homesickness real. Also when things go on with your friends and family that you can’t be there for, but you learn to trust and leave it in God’s hands.
One of my hardest struggles is the feeling that my friends are all moving on with their lives and that I’ve been put on the back burner and will not really be a part of their lives then when I get back. These moments are hard, but I also fully believe that people should continue on with their lives and am excited for that for them too.
My advice to give to those who have friends about to leave on the Race is to truly tell them what’s going on with you. It may seem the most normal thing to you that you’re doing, but we want to know. We want to know how your doing, what your day was like, we want to feel like we’re still a part of your life and that it’s not all about us because it’s not. What we’re doing seems exciting to you all, and in part it’s exciting to us as well, but what’s hard for us is not hearing big and small things going on in friend’s lives from them but through others.
10. Strangest food you’ve eaten?
liver…. never again… never again…
I received many questions and there are two more parts coming with more of them. If you have questions, please send them my way I promise I will be answering them all.
Till Next Time,
Kara Faber
