On March 15, 2017, I celebrated a very important day on the World Race.
The Halfway Mark.
On this day, my team celebrated the fact that we’ve been living a life on mission overseas for 5 ½ months (over 150 days!). We celebrated that we have done ministry in 7 different countries, lived in 10 different cities, traveled around by plane, bus, car, van, pick-up truck, tuk tuk, and even by boat, made deep friendships that surpassed language barriers, laughed more than we ever thought we could, sweat more than we ever thought we could, and have come out stronger on the other end of the toughest of challenges. We celebrated that we’ve been living the adventure of a lifetime, and yet we’re only halfway there.
My last Honest Thoughts blog was in Month 2 in Nicaragua, and a lot has changed since then. In Month Six, I’m living in a new continent, with a new culture, new language, new team, and a new perspective on my missional life. So, I want to give you all a glimpse into where I’m at right now, smack dab in the middle of the World Race.
First things first. The GOOD.
Oh man. There’s a LOT of Good. An exorbitant amount of Good. So much Good I probably don’t even notice it most of the time. But let’s unpack that.
Since Nicaragua, I’ve been a part of some incredible ministries. Month Three in Honduras, I got to live in a beautiful town up in the hills and serve at a special needs home, making some of the most beautiful friendships with the residents. Month Four I joined a new all-men team that did Unsung Heroes ministry (where we attempt to find ministries in an assigned city for future World Race teams to partner with) in Belize, where we were able to meet almost a dozen different ministries across two cities, and made great friends in our two amazingly generous last minute hosts! Month Four also gave us two weeks in Guatemala for Leadership Development Weekend and Debrief, with opportunities to rest, refocus, and be trained up for the months ahead. Month Five in Malaysia also had us doing Unsung Heroes ministry, this time with a brand new team, which allowed us to meet so many amazing contacts with incredible ministries, and gave us so many great opportunities to serve and love people across the city of Kuala Lumpur. And now, Month Six in Thailand, my team has been serving at an English school, teaching English classes to Thai children while also doing evangelism at a local university. Across the board, I’ve been a part of some of the coolest ministries, and I’ve learned SO MUCH about God’s heart for His people all across the world.
And, of course, traveling the world has also allowed me the opportunity to enjoy all of the unbelievable adventures each country has to offer. In Honduras, I got to ride in the back of a truck bed through the misty mountains, hike through the rainforest to a hidden waterfall, and have the most amazing Latin American Christmas celebration with my team. In Guatemala, I watched a volcano erupt from the roof of my house, saw one of the most amazing fireworks shows I’ve ever seen during Antigua’s New Year’s celebration, and roasted marshmallows over lava rocks at the foot of a volcano. In Belize, I got to snorkel in the second largest coral reef in the world, live deep in the middle of the jungle for a week, and go swimming in a beautifully secluded waterfall. In Malaysia, I got to experience Hindu culture at the Batu Caves during the Thaipusam Festival, celebrate Chinese New Year in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, and live in an unbelievable high rise apartment that looked out over the entire city. And in Thailand, I got to live on a tropical island for a weekend, climb to the top of a huge waterfall, and finally fulfill my dreams of going island hopping in Thailand. In the last six months, I’ve seen so many beautiful things I never thought I’d see, I’ve tasted some of the most incredible food, I’ve seen things that have taken my breath away, and I’ve had so many unbelievable blessings from God poured out over me that I will never be able to doubt His love or faithfulness over me ever again.
The Race has been everything I could’ve hoped it would be. And just when I feel like I’ve seen and done enough, something even more amazing comes around the corner.
But here’s what been funniest about my experience on the Race thus far.
It has never met my expectations.
I guess training camp should’ve taught me this. But alas, it’s taken me this long to realize that the expectations I had for this trip were never going to exactly dictate what comes next. Some months, ministries looked a lot different from what I imagined them to be like. Some cities I’ve visited have been a lot more rural than expected, and some were far nicer. Some comforts of home have been stripped away, and others have been bountifully added. Some ministries have been harder than I thought they would be, and others have been fantastically fun. There has been a wealth of times where I expected God to give me one outcome, and He gives me something completely different. And I’d say most of the time, what He’s given me has always been far better than what I expected from Him.
I’ve imagined that whenever things are going well, around every corner is something that’s going to take me down. Be that a rough ministry, or a tough living situation, or cancelled plans, or stolen items, or some sort of crippling disease, I’ve expected the World Race to be a lot harder than it has been. And to be honest, I think I may have just gotten lucky. I know that my teams have had the nicer end of ministry locations these last six months, and other teams have had harder times. However, I’ve seen just how much God has helped me to accept my circumstances at every bend, good or bad. Sure, life on the Race has been a lot easier than I expected, but some days I wonder if maybe my circumstances have in fact been hard, but I’ve gotten strong enough to endure them.
In talking about expectations, one of the biggest expectations given to me by past World Racers was that by Month Six, I would start to grow weary of the Race. Sounded kinda crazy to me, I thought, growing weary of a crazy amazing trip like this one. But surprisingly, this expectation did indeed come true. Off and on this past month, I have been overwhelmingly distracted by things back home, and I’ve desperately craved all of the freedoms of my life back home. And I haven’t the only one; my team continues to lament all of the things they missed from home from time to time. The biggest surprise about this was that I expected this struggle to come out of a really tough ministry. I even started to wonder if I even would get homesick, seeing as how my last five months have been more comfortable than expected. But in true Race fashion, I hit the infamous and warned-about “wall” at the halfway mark, and I’ve now been working since then to climb over it. And as I’m climbing over this wall, I’m exiting out of the first phase of this trip (or, the “Honeymoon” phase), and into the second phase.
Disillusionment.
Let me give you an idea of what this new disillusionment phase looks like. In the phase, things aren’t as magical as they once were. You begin to retreat from people to watch your usual TV shows more, because it allows you to check out of reality for a while. You start to notice the fact that the weather is crazy hot, and there’s nothing romantic about sweating in your sleep. Cultural differences are now more annoying than charming. You crave pizza more than anything in this world. The little things that frustrate you about your teammates start being highlighted more and more. You realize that encountering new cultures is a lot more draining than it once was. You start to value all of the things you’ve learned from this experience, and consider this point the peak of your experience from which you can now smoothly exit out of. At the beginning of the Race, I was SO hungry to see the world and soak in all of the adventures each place has to offer; now, what sounds better even better than backpacking through Southeast Asia is eating Nutella while watching Netflix on the couch at home.
The nice thing to know about this phase is that it’s entirely normal. I’ve been so encouraged by several friends who have done the overseas missionary life, and have hit the exact same wall before too. And so, I feel no shame in admitting that there are some days when I’m ready to check out of this whole thing. The disillusionment phase is a hard one to deal with, but despite what the enemy tries to throw my way to discourage or distract me, one truth still remains at the center of my focus.
I’ve still got five months left. And I am NOT done with the Race yet.
So, I’m figuring out how to move forward. The week of our halfway mark, I was deep in the throws of disillusionment. I didn’t know what was wrong with me; I felt so drained of passion for the Lord, I wasn’t emotionally present in ministry, I only looked forward to my break time, and I spent so much time thinking about life after the Race that I was getting anxiety. I knew that God had so much more for me ahead than I could imagine from this place, but I didn’t know if I really wanted it.
And that led me think about what I did want. About what got me excited about the World Race to begin with. About what I wanted to get out of this year, and what I wanted to see God do. Was I really getting what I wanted out of this experience?
On the day my team celebrated the halfway mark, God had laid it on my heart to lead my team through this question of purpose. What did we want out of the World Race? And now that we’re halfway through, have we gotten what we wanted yet? We each went to the Lord to better understand the desires of our hearts, asking Him to highlight the true reasons we wanted to go on this trip, and to help us see clearer what our goals were. As we went around the room sharing our goals, most if not all of us shared desires that had yet to be fulfilled. And even though we felt like we’d already had enough of the Race, we each realized there was still so much more to strive for.
At the beginning of the Race, I thought that simply saying “yes” to an 11-month missions trip around the world meant that God would do all kinds of crazy things in my life. But I’ve since learned that there’s more to this than just the initial “yes”. And so, as I made my list, an astonishing truth came into focus:
I have the responsibility to determine my experience.
Because just like life, the World Race will not change my life unless I want it to. And just like life, living as a constant consumer will one day leave me empty.
I’m realising now that if I want to have a life changing year, I need to fight for it. Every. Day. The World Race is not just an experience that happens to you, but something you have to choose to experience. Sure, I might have buses and flights and lodging booked in the next five countries I visit, but simply traveling to these places doesn’t mean that I’m going to have the crazy radical experience with God that I’m dreaming of.
If I want to radically fall in love with Jesus, I need to pursue Him and to give Him time and space in my life to move. If I want to have my heart break for the world, then I need to stay present and give my whole heart and attention to Jesus and to the ministry. If I want to continue having amazing adventures, then I need to put the work in to make them happen, and let myself go to enjoy them with God. If I want to see radical transformation in my life, then I need to ask God to call me out of my comfort zone, believe for Him to do miraculous work, and say yes when He gives me the opportunities to minister to people around me. If I want to grow in confidence in my relationship with Jesus, then I need to surrender my desires to Him and to give Him total control over my life.
At the beginning of the Race, I had a lot of dreams where I was back in America for certain events, confused as to what I was doing there because I knew that I was supposed to be overseas. Now, I keep having dreams about being at the end of the Race, coming home to America, but realizing that the whole trip went so fast, I don’t remember anything from the last months. In both dreams, I’m back in America, where my heart wants to be. But in neither dream am I happy, because I know that the sweetness of this reward will only be sweet when I’ve endured my present circumstances. And isn’t that kind of how our lives on earth should be? Anxiously awaiting the beauty of Heaven, but also knowing that the sweetness of Heaven will be even greater after a long life of faithful endurance? The greater the struggle, the sweeter the reward.
And so, I’m choosing to fight, in the face of everything my flesh wants, to fully live every moment. I’m choosing to fight to love the person in front of me, be a faithful servant to God, and be selfless and giving to everyone around me. I’m choosing to fight to stay present, enjoy life, and live in pursuit of the goal. I’m choosing to fight to let Christ be number one in my life over comfort and security. I walk into these next five months, weary but excited, knowing that even though the struggles will grow, the end result will be so much sweeter than if I had ended it right here in Month Six.
Because I believe all of my personal goals for this year CAN be achieved. I believe that God can bring Kingdom to Earth in every place I go to. I believe that God can touch down in the most desolate of places. I believe that God can change me from the inside out and launch me into an incredible future. And I believe that at the end of this year, when I’m back home in sweet little Suwanee, GA, I will look back on this season with pride, knowing that I endured. But I believe that Jesus doesn’t want me just to be a consumer of these experiences, but a producer. I believe Jesus didn’t want me to just say “yes” to the World Race, but to just say “yes” to Him.
The hardest is yet to come, I know. But I’m determined to believe that despite all the goodness I’ve seen thus far, I haven’t seen nothing yet.
“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” James 1:12
