This is a brief retelling of how I ended up applying and committing to the World Race Spanish route. (Relatively brief. As in, relative to a novel. In two parts.)
When I was in high school, I thought that I would grow up to be an English teacher. I was a total nerd about it, too– I would plan out lessons in my head, and think about how I would teach things differently than my teachers were doing it. To this day, I know exactly how I would open up the first day of class, and I also have a stellar discussion planned for A Tale of Two Cities. Then I got into my first Spanish class in my junior year, and my plans started to change. I did not expect to love the language as much as I did, but something about it drew me in; I loved the way it sounded when it rolled off the tongue, the spice of the Latin American culture, the allure of Spain, and frankly, I loved that I could say things that my parents couldn't understand. The summer between high school and college, I spent 3 weeks in Spain with my Spanish class, and knew that I wanted to continue studying Spanish throughout college. I wanted so desperately to be fluent. I had still intended to teach English, but somewhere in the midst of my planning my intention shifted from teaching Literature to teaching English as a second language, or working as a translator. I went into college declaring Spanish as my major instead of English, and knew with absolute peace that I was doing what I was meant to do.
Until, after two years of studying Spanish, I got this wild idea to jump ship and change my major to Literature. This move made as much sense to me as Spanish did when I entered college. I couldn't totally explain why I switched, but I knew with absolute certainty that I needed to do it, so I did. I was immediately reminded why I loved literature so much in high school, and why I had wanted to be an English teacher. My love for Spanish never went away, but I was always haunted by the question of why God had told me to study Spanish in the first place. College, as I understood it then, was so concrete: you get your degree, you get into the profession that that degree permits, you work that until you retire, and that's your life, that's who you are. In what reality do the Spanish language and American literature collide? How could my future life allow me to pursue both of my passions? I felt like I had to sacrifice one interest to make the other one work for me, because I thought that “making one work” meant building a career off of it.
These days, I don’t believe that my degree or my career define me. I don’t think I have to pick one passion and pursue it to the end of my life. I don’t think that I have to use my degree for the exact career it was intended for, or that I have to have the same job until I retire—I don’t even know if I want to retire! I’m 24, for goodness sake! Here’s what I know: I love the Lord, I love Spanish, I love literature, I love people and animals and writing and service. I believe that the Lord has instilled in me certain passions for His own purposes, and I believe that by aligning myself to His will, I will get to explore the things I love and honor Him at the same time! That’s really the beauty of following God anyway: the more you know Him, the more you love Him; the more you love Him, the more you love living.
Stay tuned for “How did I end up here? (part II)” to find out how I was called onto the Race!
