Hey Friends. Thank you for visiting my blog!
There's so much I could tell you about myself, & I certainly will later, but I'll just start with my most recent thought-processes over the past year or two leading up until deciding to fully commit to going on The Race:
It was nearly two years ago that I first heard of this organization called “The World Race”, which takes volunteer missionaries through a rigorous journey of traveling to 11 countries in 11 months time to serve the ministries and local people they encounter there. The thought of doing something so amazing made me second-guess diving into the “working world”, like many college graduates do, but as the months passed, that’s where I found myself as well, working in beautiful downtown Kansas City at a job that was in my career field, one that I thoroughly enjoyed. So this “idea” of doing something like The World Race was quickly pushed to the back of my mind; little did I know, it never left my heart.
Fast-forward to today—Independence Day, and it’s been a full year of working downtown and seeing what great opportunity there is to help people in need in my own “back-yard”, whether they be homeless, depressed or anxious, have a broken-down vehicle, or just laid-off from work because of the economy, I’ve realized that there are people in need all around me that I can love and help; if I’m being honest, this reality may have been what kept me from leaving this country of ours in the first place.
All the more, however, I’ve felt a tug on my heart to step out of my comfort zone and actually GO. While there is great need here, God has not let me forget that there is, perhaps, an even greater need in these far-off places, where people live in small rural towns and villages, never having heard the Gospel story of a Father’s Love so great that He would send His only son to die for their sins, MY sins, all of our sins. It doesn’t matter why they haven’t heard this Story; there could be many reasons why they haven’t. Their country may have strict government regulations and laws about another belief system being the only religion allowed there, they may be too busy caring for their sick and dying populations of family and friends who have contracted AIDS or some other disease from contaminated water, or it may be that people are simply not coming to tell them: the fact of the matter is that they have not heard, and they may feel like they have no hope and cannot change their lives on their own.
I believe this is why the idea of participating in something like The World Race never left my heart, because there are still so many people in this big world who have yet to hear about Him. I can’t help but sit here on our Nation’s Independence Day, as I write to you, knowing that while I am continually grateful for our liberties in this country, and how they've been fought for sacrificially, there is an even greater story of Deliverance and Freedom that needs telling; so many people are waiting to hear it. There are people in these nations who are still working as slaves or women and children who feel trapped in prostitution as a result of human trafficking. They have not yet heard that they can live in God’s freedom alone, and that there is an eternal Hope that far outweighs this life’s trials. Many of us live in the "Land of the Free", but I especially need to be reminded that true freedom is found in an Eternal Kingdom that has everything to do with our Father, and nothing to do with America.
While I can come up with so many reasons to stay here, such as continuing my career path or getting more involved in my local church or pursuing a graduate degree of some sort, I think those things can wait for 11 months. Stepping out, GOING, challenging myself, telling the people of these nations the story I’ve had the privilege of knowing my whole life, will have a far greater impact than if I decided to stay comfortable.
If I did not believe this, I wouldn’t be following-through and GOING. If this weren’t something God is serious about, I probably would’ve long forgotten about The World Race. But it’s time to be obedient. Some of us are called to stay here and help in our own backyards, and some of our are called to GO. Our days on this earth are short, and I’ve started to really ask myself what I am going to do with my time here that will have a lasting impact on God’s Kingdom rather than my own Kingdom.
Won't you join me in this Mission?
