Comfort zone to me means I have control; it means I already know the outcome and that comes with expectations. Growing up in a Christian home, helping out at church was a given. I have acquired many skills and knowledge in the process but I was doing them pretty much all for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t until college when it finally hit me that the longest distance for me is between my head and my heart.
Graduated from RIT in May 2014, it was an emotional weekend for me. Many people focused their senior year on the last time they will do something while that was a gateway to many of my firsts! During that memorial weekend, my family, my best friend, and my closest friends, who I have grown to know and love in the 5 years of college, met for the first time and celebrated with me. My heart was full especially because senior year was rough for me. To sum it up, it was a mixture of physical pain (first car accident), emotional heartbreak (from my first serious relationship), and mental anxiety (from my unknown post-grad plans). To many people, it sounded unfortunate and some even felt bad for me. Personally, especially in the hindsight, it was one of the best things that happened. Unbeknownst to when, I developed the thinking that any sign of weakness would mean losing others’ respect for me; subconsciously, I have begun to build a wall around me. In short, the series of event was just enough to break me down and gave me the opportunity to let people into my life and to accept help from others for the first time.
It was time for a new chapter of my life. As I applied and interviewed around the country, I made sure that NYC was not an option. Of course, life can be quite humorous at times; I am now working in one of the most iconic buildings in New York City for almost 2 years! To many people, especially on social media, I lived a very glamorous life. As an engineer who lives and works in NYC, travel for work and leisurely, and always have plans in the evenings and on the weekends, it was the dream lifestyle for many! To me, it was cool for a short time but it quickly turned to exhaustion and loneliness.
As 2014 was coming to an end, I reflected upon my senior of college, my around-the-country tour of job interviews, and the transition back to NYC for a full time job. All was great but something was missing – my faith. It was then when I acknowledged that I have acquired many of the head knowledge of the bible while growing up in a church but my heart was far from believing it. It was a hard truth to accept as I have always claimed that I am a Christian. That awakening set me off to go on this exploratory journey of finding my own faith and that became my priority as I kick started 2015.
My post-grad faith journey began in January. I church hopped, visited The Journey Church, and found myself returning week after week. In the beginning, I would attend a service and leave immediately after. Slowly, I find myself joining their growth group and their Worship Arts Team. Around May, I went up to Albany to help my best friend pack all of his belongings and prepare to move back to NYC temporarily. One of the evenings, his roommate and I decided to grab dinner. After hearing my updates on life, he suggested the World Race to me and introduced me to a few of the racers’ instagram accounts for me to follow. It was a cool idea at first but i quickly brushed it off; I thought that only hippies can quit their job and go on trips like this and haven’t thought about it since then. Months later during Labor Day weekend, I attended Eastern Chinese Bible Conference (ECBC) and the theme was “EvangeLife: Ambassadors for Christ”. On the last day during the Retreat of Silence, I was going use that time for a nice nap outside because I was exhausted from the late night worship. Instead, the idea of the World Race was on my heart. I was kind of considering it at different points during the weekend already but it was then I felt that God called me to go.
After the retreat, I did some research and talked with some of the Adventure in Missions (AIM) staff about it. However, I was scared and didn’t feel like it’s something I would/should do. I decided to leave that deciding factor to God. The night before I left to Hong Kong in October, I submitted the application to AIM. In the three days I was in the US after my trip to Hong Kong, I had the follow up call and the interview. The application/interview process was nerve-wrecking to me because it required me to be vulnerable and I was not very good at that. Shortly, I was on a tour in Europe for work and returned to Paris on the night of the horrific shooting. Being in the country while that happened and then trying to leave the next day was an experience in and of itself. Upon my return, while my body was still trying to figure out which time zone I was in, I found out that I was accepted on the August Route 1!
It has been about three months since I have been accepted to the Race now and it has been a wild journey for me to say the least. As I am growing, personally, spiritually, and professionally, vulnerability and empathy have been my two of my greatest challenges. Those two characteristics open up the gate to emotions and that has been an unchartered territory for me. Facing my fear and my hurt was hard, sharing that with others was just arduous. I know that the road ahead of me will not become easier but I am beginning to find joy and freedom in Christ (and actually mean it). To top it all off, I now have people to depend on and a God who assured me that He will be with me because I simply allow them into my life. As the title of the post suggested, life did begin at the end of my comfort zone. It has been a crazy ride so far and I just cannot wait to see what else is in store for me!
Now that you read the Reader’s Digest version of why I will go on this race, I get to share with you some of the fun information about this trip since my last post!
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Route Change! My route changed since my last post! My route will now begin with Serbia, Romania (previously Albania), Bulgaria (moved up a month to replace Macedonia), and Greece (newly added). The rest of the route has remained unchanged, for now.
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Training Camp will take place from June 8 – 18, 2016 in Gainesville, GA. Although my team has created a group chat, it will be our first face-to-face interaction. Both Adventure in Missions (AIM) and the alums I have met discouraged us from digging into the details of training camp in order to get the full experience. This is really all the information I’ve been provided thus far! It’s less than 99 days away!!
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Launch marks the beginning of the race! We will be going to Atlanta for some more training before we head out to our first country (Serbia). More information will be provided at training camp in June but we were told it will either be August 4th or 5th! (That’s 155 days away!!). More on that when I find out in Training Camp!
