My father has been a volunteer firefighter for the last fifteen years. For over half of my life I’ve seen him run out of the house at any hour to respond to a call, and I’m very familiar with the alarm test blaring from his pager at 6:00 pm every day. My mother was involved with schools – when my sister and I were little, she was the room parent. Later she was on the PTO and music boosters until we graduated. So volunteering was something always present in my life.
Then the World Race happened, which is effectively “volunteering” for 11 months. It’s true – we don’t get paid, we’ve left our jobs or postponed starting a career, and we’re serving in various facets around the world, but there’s a little more to it than that. Something I’ve noticed over the last seven months is that people outside of the race tend to put it on some sort of pedestal. We hear it all the time:
“This is an amazing thing you’re doing.”
“Not everyone would sacrifice a whole year of their life.”
“Wow, I wish I could do that.”
Now I’m not trying to shut down any sort of compliment here, and I’m not out to make the Race easier than it seems (if anything it’s harder) but as much as we “volunteer our time,” it’s only a year. The people we meet along the way, especially our hosts, are volunteering their entire lives.
We arrived in Cambodia a few days before our hosts did, as they were spending Christmas in Vietnam. Finally, they knocked on our door one evening, and we met Rogil and Janice. Within seconds of meeting them, I had a feeling that these two were awesome, and I wasn’t wrong.
Rogil and Janice Apostol (how great of a surname is that when you’re missionaries?) are a couple from the Philippines. They’ve been married for six years, and they’re the youngest hosts I’ve had so far – they’re in their early 30’s and therefore could technically go on the World Race if they wanted to. They started Cornerstone Church in their home, and then moved into rental space when the church body could no longer fit in the house. Cornerstone makes a point to invest in all areas of the community – they have a standing partnership with a village in the Kampong Chhnang province, specifically focusing on education and literacy, they involve the teens and young adults in serving/volunteering, and they’re always looking for ways to reach people who wouldn’t otherwise attend church.
The Apostols don’t take a salary from their work with the church – they are still relying on funding and donations, but this prospect doesn’t bother them at all. During one of our first meetings with them, an oft-repeated phrase was “God has provided” or “God will provide.”
…And I thought that trying to raise $16,000 for 11 months was a big deal – imagine doing that for the foreseeable future without an end date. And yet people all over the world do that for the sake of the gospel – these are the real full-time volunteers.
