Since March, World Racers have been given the opportunity to invite their parents onto the field for one week of the Race. These Parent Vision Trips (PVTs) are now standard on all World Race routes. This is Emily Peterson’s story of when her parents became World Racers.
I’ll never forget the feeling I had right before I saw my mom and dad. I stood outside the Nairobi International Airport that Friday night both excited and exhausted.
For financial reasons alone, I never thought my parents would make it all the way to Africa to visit me, yet there they were weaving their way through the crowd.
I ran into the crowd and flung myself into Mom’s arms, and we pulled Dad into a family hug. I could’ve sworn everyone around us was cheering, clapping, and crying at the poetic beauty of it all. For the first time in eight months I was standing in front of my parents. Only we weren’t in America.
We were in Kenya, and my parents were officially World Racers.
It wasn’t easy to have my parents on the field with me. There were hard conversations and difficult interactions. But there were also beautiful things.
From playing soccer and volleyball with kids to door-to-door evangelism, ministry looked different every day.
One day we did an Ask the Lord (ATL) where we relied completely on the Spirit to lead us into ministry.
In an ATL, everyone goes to the Lord in prayer asking for specific visions, words, or signs of some sort indicating what he wants you to do for the day. My parents and I were in a group that received fifteen or twenty signs from God including: a woman wearing a red hat and a smoking chimney.
We then walked into town searching for these signs and almost immediately spotted a smoking chimney overtop a roadside restaurant. Out of the restaurant walked a woman wearing a bright red hat.
In conversation with her, she told us she had both Yellow Fever and Malaria. As we prayed for her, my hand was resting on her shoulder and I literally felt her body cool down.
After the prayer, she said she was feeling better already. We went back the next day to check up and she was healed!
While our entire afternoon was bursting with miracles of the signs being exposed, it wasn’t the most extraordinary part of the PVT. Nor was the most extraordinary part the homemade cookies my mom brought or even the rooftop worship sessions.
The most extraordinary part was getting to do ministry with my parents.
For me, ministry is a naturally occurring part of life. Chasing kids around soccer fields and door-to-door evangelism have become second nature for me. But to my parents, praying for people is much more unfamiliar.
Yet they came all the way to Africa to be part of this life with me. They came knowing it would be strange and different, but they approached it with great attitudes and willing spirits.
They experienced my lifestyle and participated in it first hand with me rather than just reading about it in an email or blog. They gave this thing called “missions” a try.
I’m so proud of them. They chose to enter my world of Chacos and cold showers. They made sacrifices to join me for just a few days. And now they’ll better understand when I talk about “organic worship” or “struggle bus travel days.”
Inviting your parents onto the field isn’t just about the poetic airport reunion. It’s about inviting God into families in new, remarkable ways. After all, he desires to heal and restore relationships, provide shared ministry experiences through parent and child, and display his glory and grace inter-generationally.
Learn more about Parent Vision Trips from Adventures in Missions’ founder Seth Barnes in this video.
