There’s a lot of preconceptions that a Racer heads out onto the field with, ideas that we have in our heads about what the Race is and what our experiences will be like. The Race is a lot of things- but contrary to what many might think, it’s not a long term mission trip and here’s why.
- Yes it’s an 11 month trip, but each month is vastly different from the rest. Rather than being a long term mission trip the World Race is actually 11 short term mission trips one right after another. Each country, and each ministry comes with its own set of demands and challenges. You may spend 4 weeks in Asia trying to figure out how to teach a range of learners English using only the Bible, only to find that the next month your main focus is getting twenty something orphans ready for school on time. The people on your team may not change often, but you’ll find that as your teammates grow and face different types of spiritual warfare in different months, the team you part with is not the team you started with. Every month is it’s own unique experience that Lord has chosen for you in order to grow your faith in a way you haven’t experienced before – including previous months on the Race.
- It’s advertised as being “more than a missions trip”. It might sound cheesy but it’s true. The Race in a sense is a training. It’s an experience designed to push us to become the Christians we are Biblically called to become. We read about how we are supposed to live in the book of Acts, but on the Race we actually get to go out and do just that- act. It might not be in the way you thought though. I thought most of my time would be spent helping people and loving on others. In fact when I talked to supporters or the American church this is what I focused on- the idea that I would be out helping people. Don’t get me wrong, we did that, all the time. But what we learned was how to help people by seeing them and their needs through Christ’s eyes. And after seeing through that lens, you can’t simply stop seeing the world through this new perspective. The set up sheet said we would build an orphanage, but when we weren’t doing that, we were with a witch doctor burning all his stuff as he committed his life to Christ and headed out for church. The set up sheet said we’d paint a mural, but in our off time we were sharing testimonies with people on the bus and praying for them. When asked at final debrief what we saw at the finish line of our race, we replied that we saw a starting line. This isn’t the end of a mission trip that lasted 11 months, it’s the beginning of a new lifestyle that we’ve been training for since we left back in August.
And so to any future Racer, or person who comes along and reads this, know that what you’re signing up for isn’t just another long term mission trip. You are signing up for a unique experience, individually designed by the Lord just for you, to become the long term, in it for the long hall citizen of heaven that you were created to be.
