To all Racers, current and future – Here is a list of wisdom I wish I could’ve read to myself before I left in January. I had many alumni friends who gave me very great practical advice, but because each Race is a little different, these are things I’ve picked up along the way that I wish I had considered and prayed about before leaving.
• STOP BUYING THINGS. RIGHT NOW. I PROMISE YOU, YOUR PACK IS TOO SMALL TO FIT ALL OF THOSE CLOTHES AND YOU JUST DON’T NEED THEM.
you have to carry it all. and that sucks.
• Do not expect that the World Race is going to change you. It is very possible and quite frankly easier to do the World Race without changing. You can come on the Race and leave your material comforts at home, but the real change will happen in your pursuit of discomfort and your willingness to be frequently pushed into challenge. I thought this meant things like not sleeping in beds, not having television, not always accessing internet; but it’s much more likely that this will come up emotionally and spiritually – relationships with your team, ministries you don’t enjoy, gaining much more weight than you expected, having your plans constantly change – that will push you into the most frustration and give you the opportunity to remain the same person who complains about the same things and feels entitled to the same rights and privileges or to become someone new. The choice is always yours in every moment of every day, and the choice will drive you crazy, but the choice is what will change you.
• Girls – you will gain weight in places you never knew you could gain weight and you will gain more weight than you expect to gain more quickly than you expect to gain it. I came on the Race knowing this, but I still had the expectation that I wouldn’t put on that much. I tell myself this every day – Deal with it. Let your identity as a strong woman of God full of character and integrity matter more than your identity as a skinny woman of god who isn’t willing to eat liver pate on a camping trip. Let God redefine your idea of beauty and let the Race free you from culture’s lies that beauty is skin-deep. Beauty lies beneath your skin. Treasure that.
this could be you, ladies.
• Pray about doing the Race as a continual fast of everything that defines your ability to be self-sufficient. Money is a big one here. My friend Jan is spending no personal money this year, and it has been the biggest favor to my faith to watch God provide when I expected that Jan wouldn’t have what he needed. One of the most valuable lessons available to you on the Race is the deep understanding that we need God way more than we think we do, and doing things like fasting money or makeup or internet or food or coffee or anything that you use to manage your “okayness” are the ways we allow God to demonstrate his provision in both huge and tiny ways. Learn to give up your right to have what you want while learning to appreciate and experiencing firsthand that God will always, always, always give you what you need. Trust God to be your provider in every regard rather than living from your own sufficiency and only trusting him to show up when your pre-allocated resources run out. It’s much easier to recognize a blessing when it’s freely handed to you than when you pay for it from your own pocket. Trust God radically.
• Forgive quickly. Choose loyalty to your teammates over loyalty to your grudges. Holding onto grudges, keeping records of wrongs, holding people in contempt for the way they treated you one day, chalking people up to your first impression of them, deciding that certain people have nothing to offer you, deciding that you will or will not be friends with select people – none of those things will work on this journey (or life). They will be a cancer to your team and to you. Live as Christ did, who pardoned his murderers while he was still hanging on the cross they nailed him to. Let grace and mercy become your default reactions, and give up your right to be right before you leave. Live humbly.
• The only expectation that works is the expectation that you will be surprised by everything that happens. Expect to have your expectations unmet all of the time. In every situation. Laugh about it.
like when you have to stand in a tiny space on a train with 60lbs. of gear on for over an hour.
• Assume the best of everyone all the time. Love always assumes the best of people. Let them surprise you. Believe they will surprise you. Sometimes your belief that people can change past all odds is the key that opens the door for them to do it. Be willing to look foolish believing for the impossible.
• Live without the expectation that everyone should listen to you even if you are right. Sure, your team leader may be wrong about the directions to ministry or which bus to take. Let your leaders fail, and support them anyway. How will they learn to be better leaders if they don’t make mistakes here and there?
• Make the conscious choice to love people, especially when it isn’t emotionally satisfying. Listen for and choose to see people’s hearts over their faults.
• Exercise. Find a way to make it happen, even if it’s just a walk. It’s the best way to blow off steam while keeping you healthy.
group p90x or insanity sessions often mean great ab workouts.
• The World Race has a way of highlighting your problems rather than letting you run away from them. If you’re trying to escape something, be ready for it to pop up – even in the first week. Come with the expectation that your issues are coming with you and be ready to discover that this journey is actually #12n12 – you’re the 12th country and you do a lot of ministry there.
• Do not bring clothes you do not like to wear. Bring clothes that make you feel like you. Shockingly, the rest of the world doesn’t live in water-resistant North Face hiking pants and Under Armor sweat-wicking dry-fit shirts. They dress pretty normally.
most people in romania do not dress like this.
• Intentionally do things you do not want to do and have never done before. That’s where your biggest reward and growth will come. Hate public speaking? Preach at a church. Hate running? Work out. Hate a teammate? Take them out for ice cream. Hate yourself and your budding waistline? Love yourself anyway. And maybe don’t take your teammate out for ice cream and go for an evening walk instead. Pursue discomfort. It’s where God lives – he waits in discomfort to offer peace to those who are seeking him in it.
• Finally, some advice that I read in a blog before I left that is worth repeating. Fight for your time with God. Fight to be alone with him and read, pray, journal, fast, cry, whatever. It’s difficult to be alone on the World Race, but if it means you have to get up an hour or two earlier every morning or stay up after everyone goes to bed – make time to pursue God. Like I said at the beginning, the act of being on the World Race won’t change you. Similarly, being here won’t instantaneously create intimacy with God; you must make time for him, just like in real life. The reward of your race will be directly proportional to the amount of effort you put into pursuing God and his heart. It is so worth it. God is so much better than an hour of sleep. He’s so much better than another movie or an extra chapter in your book. Make time to know him, and I even suggest doing it at the same time every day so that your physical reality mirrors his reality – constancy. Make your time with God the one reliably constant thing in your life to mirror the fact that he is truly the only constant you will ever have. You cannot do this without God.
Oh, yeah. And have some fun, too. Fun, like so many other things, is simply a choice. You can have fun doing anything – walking down the street in the rain, painting zip-lines at a camp, actually going on zip-lines in Ecuador, sitting in team time when there's conflict and discomfort, when you've been on a bus for 15 hours and have at least 15 more to go. Anything can be fun.
The choice, annoying as it may be, is always yours.
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