Before coming on the Race, I thought I knew exactly what I was signing up for. I mean I had been on mission trips before, so this had to be pretty much the same thing, right? I would obviously spend my mornings in quaint coffee shops and my days dancing and singing with beautiful orphaned children. Well, I was wrong. The World Race is indeed an 11-month mission trip. But it is so much more than a trip around the world. It is life. It is the endless struggle to get out of bed each morning and make a conscious decision to pour yourself into ministry. It is living in community 24/7 and not always feeling like you have the capacity to love the people around you. It is cleaning bathrooms until you could be employed as a maid. It is being vulnerable when you don’t want to.
And yes, sometimes it’s the Instagram post of you riding an elephant, bungee jumping over Victoria Falls, or cuddling with a tiger. But mostly, it’s not. It is your every day. It is leaving all of the comforts of what you know as home behind to follow Jesus. It is throwing yourself outside of your comfort zone. It’s letting people you’ve only known for a few months see the broken, dirty parts of yourself that you never thought you would actually have to say out loud.
It is hard. It is challenging. It is exhausting. But it’s worth it. It is freedom from chains of your past that have been waiting to be broken for so long. It is tears of joy from laughing so hard with precious new brothers and sisters in Christ. It is the warmth of His arms around you when you miss your family and your friends. It’s letting it sink in that His love is deep, wide, and unlike anything else in the world. It’s realizing that no matter what trials or challenges you will face on the Race or in the entirety of your life, it’s all worth it because we serve the Lord of the universe. He desires to dance, run, and laugh with us. He wants to shower each and every one of us with His grace, mercy, and deep, ceaseless love. Most importantly, it is the reality that your relationship with Jesus is the most important thing in your life.
So, whether you’ve done the Race, are on the Race, are going on the Race, or if you’ve just somehow found yourself reading this blog, realize that those Instagram pictures don’t do the Race justice. This journey is hard and it is exactly that; a journey. But it is in the imperfect moments; the moments that aren’t framed, filtered and perfectly edited for everyone to see, that we experience and witness the most beautiful and incredible growth.
