The World Race is a life changing experience, and our alumni use what they learned for years after the Race. Bethany Waddell, of the January 2012 E Squad, recently reflected on her Race and the way it showed her what life is all about.
After eight months at home, it's about time I allow myself to miss and reminisce a bit.
The thing is, the longer I am home and the more I think about it, the more I feel like the World Race represented what life is truly supposed to be all about.
Many skeptics, critics, and even some World Race alumni will scoff at that statement….but hear me out.
The World Race was a seriously hard, scary, exhausting, and overwhelming undertaking. But so much more than that, it was a year of living life in a raw, authentic, purposeful, outpouring of ourselves, one day, one moment, at a time.
And when I look over the year, from the tiniest, grittiest detail right up to the big, beautiful picture of the story the year told, I feel like God blessed me with a year of seeing the type of life we were meant to live.
A life that isn’t about us and our plans to look beautiful, get rich, or obtain an enviable reputation, home, career or spouse – but is about using our hands and feet and words and smiles and dollars and intellect to pour abundantly out onto those less fortunate in body or spirit. A life where it really isn’t about me, but is about being honored at the chance to quietly serve others.
A life where friendship isn’t about just glossing over the hard stuff and having a cup of coffee once in a while, often holding back hard truth to avoid being uncomfortable – but is about hard conversations bringing snotty, ugly crying sessions, often complete with slamming doors and harsh words that later bring even more tearful apologies, ultimately deepening our love and understanding for each other.
Friendships that have intentionally shared hard and painful details of the past and don’t cover up the ugly, hard stuff of today just to “save face.” That have carefully learned each other's strengths and weaknesses and how to push each other gently to grow.
And most moments bring snorts of laughter and observations of how hilarious life is, all while sharing sleeping bags and head lice and coveted chocolate bars. You know how to fix each other's coffee in the morning, you know which of you always has enough toothpaste to share, and which of you will most naturally step into any given ministry role.
A life that isn’t about seeking thrills at the bottom of the whiskey bottle or with that guy across the bar that is eyeing us – but is about jumping head-first into experiencing the beauty of what God has created and given us the ability to find thrilling.
Using our eyes to visually feast upon the Himalayas that feel other-worldly, our mouths to taste the sweetest, juiciest mango that Cambodia can boast of, our noses to smell the warm salt air on Nicaraguan beaches, our ears to hear a thousand Kenyan girls raising their voices in worship, and our able bodies to climb upon the back of an elephant and traipse through the jungles of Thailand.
A life where church isn’t an optional hour on Sunday morning where we may or may not sing along to the words on the screen while mentally planning our afternoon – but is about a body of people singing loud with arms raised, or quietly with our faces to the ground. Singing with passion to a man who truly lived on this same earth 2,000 years ago and who catches our tears in the palms of his scarred hands.
A life that doesn’t keep God in a tiny box that might sit on a shelf alongside our golf clubs, DVD collection, or some other hobby that defines us in some small way – but is about humbly accepting how overwhelmingly huge, powerful, and present God really is.
A life that is about hitting a place of peace that you are following the one true God, the one that wants to blow your socks off by answering your prayers and loving on you and planning a much bigger, more colorful, more fulfilling life than you could ever dream of coming up with on your own.
The World Race was about counting your blessings in any given moment, high fiving and cheering when the power came on or we happened upon a place with (imagine it!) air conditioning.
It was about letting little orphans throw their arms around your neck and kiss your cheek with no fear for your health. It was about stopping to spend time with the untouchable homeless man that everyone else was stepping over.
It was about joyful reunions with people we called family at the end of each month when we traveled together, half-tackling each other in giant bear hugs, and you wondered how in the world you had only known these people for a few months when surely you had already had a lifetime’s worth of experiences together.
Daily life was about learning to choose joy, learning to pick our battles and to celebrate our successes, and to see the face of God in each of his uniquely formed children.
Can anyone really argue that each of our lives, no matter what the day-to-day looks like, would be more well-balanced and satisfying with some semblance of each of these things?
And now, after months of struggling, I refuse to settle for less. I refuse to succumb to a culture of obsessing over my image, asking “what’s in it for me?” before any given decision, settling for surface-level relationships, and letting the word “worship” apply only to that one song after the praise song and right before the sermon.
Despite my observations of where life misses the mark sometimes, I have finally hit a healthy place with being at home and seeing how to learn from and embrace this season. God has begun to show me a glimpse of what is next for me in the places I came to love last year, and I am feeling more and more alive as I lean into his promises.
To each his (or her) own, of course – maybe the reason living in 24/7 Christian community while working in ministry in developing nations felt so right to me is because it is where God created me to be.
And as it is, I am feeling that the World Race might not be over after all.
Photos via Justin Marshall
