Hi friends! I’ve been back in the United States for a little over a month now. My last month on the World Race in China was a whirlwind. We traveled by train every 3 days and went from the top of eastern China to the bottom and back up again. And my first month home has been filled with visiting friends and family, getting used to American culture again, and general moving forward in life. I’d like to tell you two of my favorite stories from China, and then tell you one thing that I love about Jesus, and kind of wrap this blog up.
Part of the Great Wall of China!
The first story. My teammate Andrew was praying one day and felt that God gave him the letters “x-i-a-n-n-i-n-g”. He didn’t know it at first, but as it turns out, Xianning is a city in China! We had no other direction except the city name, but we went there with faith that God would use us how He wanted to. We immediately met 2 people who were curious as to why 5 Americans were there, and we told them that our God had sent us, and that sparked a conversation about faith. (It’s illegal to evangelize in China, but by that point we had felt the Lord calling us to boldness in China, so we just went for it). Long story short, they didn’t believe in God but were interested in learning more. We have long-term missionary friends in a city nearby and we have gotten them connected!
Then we decided to go to a local college, and we went to the basketball courts. Andrew started playing basketball with some of the guys there, and me, Tamara, Connie, and Maryah stayed on the side of the courts to talk to a group of girls that were there. We were immediately able to bring up faith and Jesus. They all said they were part of the Communist party and didn’t believe in God. We all talked for several hours, and by the end of our time there, 2 of the girls had accepted Christ as their Savior! This brief description can’t describe the fullness of that experience. But there was such a peace and joy there with us that day, it’s something I’ll never forget. Some of our team gave their Bible’s to these new believers. One of the girls said “Is this really a Bible?? I’ve never seen one! Can I touch it?”. The awe and joy on her face was amazing to witness. We’ve also gotten them connected to the local missionary. It was a privilege to have God lead us directly to the city of Xianning to meet these people and tell them about Jesus.
Our new Chinese sister-in-Christ reading the Bible for the first time!
Story two. We were in Guangzhou (the hometown of Mulan, who was a real person!). One day we went to the local university. Less than a minute of walking on campus, I was bombarded by 3 Chinese girls, and most of my team also had the same experience. They said “We are students and we need to interview a foreigner for an assignment. Can we ask you some questions?” Their first question… “Can you tell us an interesting story?” Haha, oh man, I had SO MANY wonderful stories I could tell them. I started telling them about my 11 month journey and I told them one of my favorite things that God did on the trip. They were atheists. But we talked and talked about faith and God and I told them all about Jesus, and they asked questions. After maybe 45 minutes, my group merged with my teammate’s group. One of the girls hung back with me (I’ll call her Hannah). She said “When you’re talking to me, I feel warmth and love!” I said “That’s Jesus!! That’s who you are feeling. He loves you so much.” And we kept talking about Him, and she told me she wasn’t ready to follow Him yet. We had to part ways soon after that, but I encouraged her to try praying to Him when she was home. I heard on the walk home that 2 of the girls my teammates talked with gave their lives to Christ that night! Praise God!
A few days later we got together at a coffee shop with 5 of the girls who bombarded my team that night, and Hannah was one of them. It was one of my favorite times on the whole Race. The five of us on my team each sat with one of the five Chinese girls in this Hello Kitty café in China and we shared for 3 hours about Jesus. We were beginning to disciple the 2 new believers and sharing even more with the 3 who weren’t sure yet. We all had our Bibles on the table and were showing each girl how to read it, and telling different Bible stories, and sharing our testimonies and about who Jesus is and why He came. I gave my Bible to Hannah that day, and it was one of the best moments of my life. I couldn’t believe that I got to be someone to introduce Jesus to another person and to give her her first Bible. She said it was the most precious gift she’s ever received. Again, words can’t really describe this moment, but it was a huge honor to be in that café that day.
This is my favorite photo of my Race because it’s a memory of what God did in a cafe in China. The 5 of us on our team each sat with one of the 5 Chinese girls we had met who wanted to know more about Jesus. We sat there for 3 hours sharing all about who He is and why He came!
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My squad on our last day of the Race. Can’t believe I got to do this crazy thing with these amazing people!
And now I am home in America. Last week I got to attend one final “wrap up” week with my squad which gave us some final training for re-entry into American culture and time to process our trip. I’ve put off writing this entry because I don’t really know how to end this blog. I’ve decided to share about one over-arching thought I had throughout the Race, and really throughout my life in general.
I want to always behold Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection. To behold means to gaze upon or observe, especially something or someone of remarkable or impressive nature. I want to never lose the awe I have when I think about Him. But I also want to know Him. He’s a real friend, a real person that I get to know more intimately every day. Beholding and knowing Jesus is the best part of my life.
When I think about Jesus, one of my favorite things about Him is that He is the Word. I really like this about Him in part because I love words. I think this is one of Jesus’ most underrated descriptors. Let me try to explain.
Words… I love how sounds are mashed together and then for some reason they carry meaning to us. If you took time to think about a word, I think you would be amazed that the sounds even mean anything at all. Like really, why do the sounds “sp” and “oon” tell our brains we’re talking about an eating utensil?
The sounds, separate from each other, mean nothing. But a word…. Ah, now we have something truly remarkable. A word carries a message! A word IS a message! A word is the bottom-line of language. There’s no smaller element of language that still retains meaning. Sure, there’s the alphabet, and yea, you can communicate a certain amount through varied pitches of grunts and guttural noises…. But a word is the building block of sentences, paragraphs, and language itself. It carries messages from one mind to another. Words are really cool. They’re like tiny invisible Pony Express riders, delivering messages all day long. From meaningless sounds, a word creates meaning. A word is the most indivisible element of language.
Back to Jesus… In the beginning when God created the Heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and when God’s Spirit hovered over the waters, God spoke and said “Let there be light!” and those words that God spoke were Jesus! Of course, through the Word God went on to create everything else that we know of and see (and so much that we’ll never know of or see). God created everything through the Word, and the Word was God and He was with God in the beginning. Without the Word nothing was made, NOTHING! A mountain wasn’t made without Jesus. A cloud, a caterpillar, an emerald, trees, sand…. Your ear lobe wasn’t made without Jesus! Nothing people, nothing!
To me, beholding Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection is intricately involved in who He is as the Word of God. Much like a word creates meaning out of meaningless sounds, I don’t think that anything in this world can possibly make any real sense without knowing Jesus, the Word of God. Nothing has real meaning without Jesus. Without the Eternal Word it’s like there’s a bunch of random sounds in our lives but no message and no meaning.
The “sounds” I’m talking about can range from the every day ins and outs of life (precious minutes and hours that we have that are often wasted) to the significant moments that change lives forever (good and bad). The “sounds” can also be anything in which we attempt to find meaning/accomplishment in life. It can be the pursuit of pleasure, commitment to a job, perfectionism, or through plumbing intellectual depths. King Solomon in Ecclesiasties says “All is vanity!” [futile, meaningless – a wisp of smoke, a vapor that vanishes, merely chasing the wind]… he’s saying throughout the book that everything in life is meaningless without God. Before I placed my trust in Jesus, my life was filled with pointless noise and there was no satisfaction or meaning behind anything.
This world very often feels like a place that is full of a bunch of random “sounds” trying to grab my attention, but it’s all static noise, just tons of random things that don’t truly mean anything in light of eternity. I often feel a huge disconnect from my generation because I find no value in many of the pointless things my society tells me I’m supposed to care about.
Please don’t get me wrong, there are things believers and unbelievers pursue every day that have tons of earthly and social value (like family, love, friendship, careers, etc.). I’m not saying everything is completely 100% meaningless to pursue on this earth, as far as society measures things. But throughout the Bible, I see over and over again that society/culture doesn’t get to say what has eternal value.
However, beneath, in, and through all of the “sounds” of life, a person can find Jesus and put their trust in Him. Jesus is the Word of God. Through Him, everything was created. Everything! He is the bottom-line, the most indivisible element of life itself. The Word makes every moment in life and every pursuit have meaning. It becomes easy to discern what is static noise and what has eternal value.
Until Jesus is Supreme in our heart’s and Lord over our lives, our every effort to find meaning in the static noise is pointless. I need Him to make this life on earth make sense. We all do. Whether I’m in Spain, Morocco, China, or America, Jesus is there in every moment of every day, and He never changes. And He carries a message of hope and life to a world filled with static noise and death. In fact, He IS the message. The Word carries a message and the Word is a message. He says that He offers forgiveness for sins and to come and have life, and have it abundantly with Him. And He is love. The Word is the only message that matters.
Being home, I’ve had many people tell me “If I were younger” or “if this-or-that were different” they would have gone on the World Race. I think that’s so awesome that many people have a heart to reach the spiritually lost in other countries. But in my heart of hearts I think that some people might idolize this trip (even future Racers who might be reading this), and they might think “If I went on a trip like that, I would be closer to God” or “If I went, I would experience Jesus in a really exciting way.”
My heart longs for every believer to understand that the wonder of knowing Christ is available to us in every moment of our lives. I’ve been home for a month now, and I stayed up for a while the other night thinking about Jesus, who He is, and what He did on the cross for us. I’m sharing that to say that a month after this crazy-wild-adventurous World Race has ended, what I’m up at night thinking about and wanting more of isn’t the Race. I’m thinking about and wanting more of Jesus, the Word of God. The best part of my Race was always Jesus, and I have Him every single moment of every day. I can simply open my Bible and there He is loving me and teaching me something. Or praise Him, and there He is, inhabiting my praises. Or pray, and He’s there listening and comforting and guiding. Or even just sitting here typing this, I know that He is with me. I’ve felt closer to Jesus in this last month in America than I did during many months on the Race. (side note: I value each person of the God-head equally haha, I’m just talking about Jesus for now).
And if you don’t know Him yet, you can have Him too! If you don’t already know Jesus, you need to know that the One who made you wants to be in a friendship with you! Isn’t that seriously the best message you’ve ever heard?? That’s the Good News! You have been separated from God because of sin, but He sent His only Son Jesus to be near to us and to take the punishment for our sins on Himself, and He offers us forgiveness of sins and a new life with Him when we repent of our sins and believe He is who He says He is. Then you follow Him! And the Good News about Jesus just keeps getting better the more and more you know Him.
When I behold Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection, I’m gazing at the Beginning and the End, at the bottom-line, the indivisible element of life itself on which everything else is built.
And now, I’m moving past the Race, though I’m sure this season of my life will have long-lasting effects. I couldn’t be more grateful for the incredible work that God did in and through me and my squad. He let us be a part of just a handful of His amazing works around the world, and He challenged me and led me through a ton of personal growth. And now I continue forward with Him, and I couldn’t be more excited!
You are so loved by the One who created you! (Don’t you just want to shout that from the rooftops?!) Thank you so much for journeying with me this year, and for all of your prayers and encouragement!
Ever onward,
Elaine
