Three hours from now I will sleepily hop on an airport shuttle with 23 eager young adults to make our officially official start to this year of abandonment for Jesus. This time tomorrow I’ll have settled into my temporary home in El Salvador.
My bags will surely weigh my physical body down as I teeter and totter through the airport, but I will carry a unique lightness that you can’t see. It’s the kind of lightness only the Lord can bring to the inner parts of my soul. It’s looking the unknown straight in the eye and saying “I have peace with you.” It’s thanking God for the future shortcomings because I trust he will bring beauty from all the ashes. It’s rejoicing that he loved us enough to carry the heaviest weight, the weight of the world’s iniquities, and came out victorious.
People love to ask us racers how we’re feeling right now. I completely understand your curiosity and concern. We just said goodbye to our parents for what could be 11 months, we don’t have every answer, and we are only hours out from doing this seemingly crazy thing where we travel the world and tell strangers about Jesus every day. I’m sure if you lined us up you’d hear about a plethora of emotions circulating our hearts. It fluctuates all the time.
I know everyone is dying to know, but I’d argue that it really doesn’t matter how we feel.
This moment is about celebration for the Kingdom that’s coming. It’s about confirmation from God. It’s about thanking him that he is the ultimate light and he graciously gave his Spirit to live inside us.
The Lord goes before us and with us to every orphanage, brothel, dark alley, gang-infested neighborhood, and prison. He is the director and we are his agents. Since the way of Jesus is the way of light, we are honored with being conduits of light wherever we may go.
It just seems silly to focus on my fluid emotions when I get to carry this amazing duty of living out that calling. How can I occupy my thoughts with what I will or won’t do and what I will and will not have for the next 11 months when I get to touch the Kingdom of God every single day?
This is a gift, and I will treat it as so.
I am overflowing with joy that I get to share Jesus with the nations over the next 11 months. I know in my heart that the World Race is only a part of the mission God has called me to, just as he calls all believers. I hope that this portion of the journey opens many eyes to his great love. I can’t wait to update you all from the field and share what he does in and through my team.
Please pray that we would be a team that follows the Holy Spirit with boldness and abandon. Pray that we would walk fearlessly down this portion of the road God has paved for us. Pray for the people we will encounter to receive Jesus and know him personally. Pray that we would live up to our vision of being a Vessel of Peace, radiating the serenity that comes only from the Father.
Thank you for helping get to this place. I am so grateful.
Now let’s do this thing!
With Love,
McKenzie
