If you had asked me a month ago if I thought I would ever be going on a year-long mission trip, I probably would have laughed at you.
It's not that I would've been opposed to going on mission trips (in fact I love going on mission trips), but I never would've thought I'd be leaving for a year. I'm graduating from UGA in December after 5 1/2 long years (that's what happens when you change your major 6 or 7 times). My plan was to either get a job or go to grad school. Obviously God thought my plan was hilarious and changed it completely.
I'm going to rewind all the way back to high school to give y'all a better idea of how missions became a part of my life. The summer after my freshman year of high school I went on what I consider my first mission trip. My church youth group went to World Changers in Norfolk, VA. It was only a week long and I spent it painting a house, putting in a tile floor, and replacing doors. But that trip flipped a switch in me so to speak. I went to World Changers every summer I was in high school. Then I went on my first international mission trip during my senior year of high school. I went to a Christian high school and in order to graduate, we had to go on a senior mission trip. My class went to Nicaragua. While there my group distributed copies of the Gospel of Luke in remote mountain villages. That was my first real cross-cultural experience and is what I credit my passion for international missions to. It also led to my next mission trip. My English teacher my senior year approached me in April of my senior year with the opportunity to go on a mission trip to Japan in June. I really just wanted to go to Japan so I immediately said yes. It was an awesome trip.
Fast forward to college. I was very involved with the Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) at UGA from day one. A really cool thing that we had at UGA and throughout the state was a summer missions program called SendMeNow. All the BCMs at colleges in Georgia would raise money all year to support this program that would send out college students all over the world FOR FREE! Needless to say I jumped all over that opportunity. I ended up going to British Columbia for 6 weeks after my freshman year, Hawaii for 3 weeks after my sophomore year (you know, really suffering for Jesus), Alberta for 6 weeks after my junior year, and New Mexico for 12 weeks after my senior year.
Now go back a month ago to the point The World Race entered the picture. Like I said, I wasn't looking for a year-long mission trip to go on. I had just applied to work as a church planting intern at a church in Montana (that process is still ongoing and I would appreciate your prayers for it!). My plan was to do that from January to May then either get a job or go to grad school. But then I'm on Facebook one day and see a friend's status about wanting to get out of Amercia for a while. I comment on it about how I want to do that too, then one of his other friends, who is currently on The World Race and I had never met or talked to (her name is Ally Blackwell), says he should do The World Race. I was curious so I started researching the race and the next thing I know I'm filling out an application! I talked to Ally, some of my friends, and one of our campus ministers about it and decided that this was what I should do, so I applied and here I am!
I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to have this opportunity to go out and share about God's love with the world. I believe it's something we are all called to do as Christians and ama so thankful that God has chosen me to do it in this way. As I go forward I just ask for everyone to be praying for me that God will use my team and myself in a mighty way.
– Todd
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