When the Lord places the calling of the World Race on your heart, you become world race social media obsessed. Any world racer reading this blog knows that to be true. You start following the World Race Instagram and Facebook, then the Adventures in Missions one and then slowly but surely random strangers that are on the race by searching the 11n11 hashtag on Instagram. It’s just what happens to most of us racers, and my story is no different.
On January 14, 2016, I was accepted to go on the World Race and soon thereafter, my social media news feed was filled with current racers on the field. I would look at the beautiful pictures of all the countries they were visiting, read their stories of what the Lord was doing in their hearts, on their teams and in the hearts of people they were encountering and simply dream about my own journey that was still 10 months away from starting.
One of the very first world racers that I followed on Instagram in January was Ryan. I don’t remember how exactly I came across his profile, but he was in his first month on the world race in South Africa. Soon after that, we became friends on Facebook and then Snapchat as well. I subscribed to his blogs and followed his journey since the very beginning of his race. Ryan reached out to me on Facebook one day asking if I was going on the World Race, and our conversation started from there. We kept in touch periodically throughout the last 11 months and he answered a lot of my silly questions about the world race like what to do with my phone plan, what I should be blogging about, what bank I should use for traveling overseas, etc. They were questions I needed the answers to, but not necessarily ones that I would reach out to World Race headquarters about. Ryan had been a huge encouragement to me since January as I prepared to go on the World Race. It turns out that Ryan and I were both from Atlanta, UGA fans and both putting a life in corporate America on hold to go on the World Race.
After month 1 in Honduras, our squad was getting ready to head to Antigua, Guatemala for our first debrief. Debrief happens for us 5 times on the race, and it consists of 4 or 5 days where our leadership team from the States flies out to whatever country we are in at the time and spends time with us. It is a time filled with check-ins, one on one conversations, prayer, learning from our leadership team and relaxing before we head to our next ministry. Two days before heading to Antigua, I saw that Ryan had posted something about being in Antigua and I reached out to him telling him that our squad would be there in two days. Turns out, his squad was going to be in Antigua for their final debrief before flying home to the States at the same time my squad was coming to Antigua for our very first debrief at the beginning of our journey. How cool is God?
On our second day of debrief, Ryan and his squad mates came to our hostel just to hang out with us, encourage us and share stories from their 11 months on the field. It was such an encouraging and uplifting time for me, especially coming out of an extremely tough first month on the field. We ended up organizing a worship night the next night between the two groups which ended up being one of the most powerful nights I have experienced on the World Race so far. We were taught a teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the name of Jesus was lifted and people were set free.
One of the things I have learned since being on the World Race is just how much God loves to show up for us, in the smallest moments and sometimes in the biggest gestures. The entire night of worship, I couldn’t help but stand in awe of God and the way He loves us. Who knew that back in January when I met Ryan through social media, that both of our squads would praising the Lord together in one of the most beautiful cities in the world as I was starting my journey and he was ending his. Y’all, God is so good.
If you’re reading this and thinking about going on the World Race, don’t be scared to reach out. God might just orchestrate it for us to meet up on the field too.
Of course we had to take a picture.
