What do you do when the World Race isn’t what you expected?
What do you do when the World Race isn’t what you wanted?
I never thought those questions would weigh so heavily on my mind. We were told not to have expectations. I took that to mean not to expect good food, a comfy bed or personal space. Instead, I expected other things. I expected to feel like I was making an impact for the kingdom. I expected to be with people who love missions as much as I do. I expected it to be awesome. The reality of the World Race fell short. We were bored a lot, people’s reasons for being on the race didn’t always match mine and it was hard to see tangible results of the work we did. The last four months had been especially difficult. There I was, month eight, disillusioned and discouraged. Our squad wasn’t necessarily getting along well. We were thirty-five people living together for a month. It became far too easy to look out for just one person. And so we did
I wasn’t ready to face another three months of that. It wasn’t what I signed up for.
As I sat and stewed over all my grievances, I saw a beacon of hope… my final deadline. I was still a couple thousand dollars away from meeting it. And if I was unable to meet it, I would be sent home. I began to secretly hope that would happen. And then, not so secretly hope. It all culminated with me in a puddle of tears with my team. I sat there and sobbed. I told them how I lost the desire to continue. I lost my fight. I couldn’t even bring myself to blog about how close I was to being sent home (don’t worry, it took a couple days, but I did blog about it). What happened afterwards is proof my teammates are the best. They were Jesus to me in that moment. They came around me, prayed for me and told me they would fight for me when I could no longer fight for myself.
*Full Disclosure: three months later, and I’m still tearing up thinking about that day and what Team Leonard did for me.*
I pushed through the next few days. I counted down to my deadline. Only two days were left until my fate would be decided. I laid awake in bed wondering if this was it. Will it end with me willingly going home? The more I pondered this, the more bothered I was. Sure, I wanted to go home. But hadn’t God said to be here in the first place? And if this is where I’m supposed to be, could I really walk away? And then I had my moment. The moment that changed the course of my life. Because I remembered something. I remembered that Jesus gave everything for me. He gave it all freely without asking anything in return. He gave all because he loved me. Could I not give him three months of my life? How could I deny him that? How could I deny him anything? It doesn’t matter if the next three months were the worst. Because it’s all for Jesus. I give it to him because I would live no other way. So I lay there. And I told God that if He wanted me to stay, I would stay. And I wouldn’t just try to stick it out until the end. I would jump back in and finish strong.
Spoiler alert: I met my deadline and stayed on the race. I’m not sure if anything about the race changed after that. But I changed. Because when it’s all for Jesus, nothing else matters.
