At launch they gave us keys on a chain for us to wear. Each key has a different word or verse on them and the guy that made all of them prayed over the keys so that each key would go to the person that God would like them to go to. I thought this was a pretty cool idea. I received mine and it had a verse on it, Romans 1:16 (For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.). Once I got back to my hotel room, I looked it up just to find out that I already had it underlined in my bible. Yes, it is an important verse, but it didn’t really make me feel different. So a day later, I got on my plane and flew to the Dominican Republic. After a 3 hour and 45 minute plane ride and 7 hour bus ride we finally made it to HOPE Mountain. The next night, I was laying on my bed next to mi amiga Grace. I was talking to her about how I’m trying to figure out if there is a deeper meaning to my key or not because I felt like there was another meaning to it. If you look at my key the numbers are upside down. Grace looked at it and told me how upside down, the numbers say “911” which was the day this journey began. We looked at each other in shock and just started laughing. Afterwards, I said maybe there is another verse behind it. So next I looked up Romans 11:6 and I promise you I had no idea what it said until the moment I read it. The verse says “And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.” We were both speechless! If it wasn’t for Grace telling me to look at it different, I wouldn’t have found the verse that has HER name in it! How crazy and coincidental was that! I also really like the meaning behind that verse too. It is basically saying if you have to work for it, it is not grace. Grace is just given out of love. If you have to perform works (various services) in order to receive grace, it is not grace. It is just a favor. I am just so happy that I found a couple of meanings behind my key and that I can use both verses and apply it to my trip and also using the verses to spread the Word of God!
Also, please check out Grace’s blog! -> http://www.gracecrespo.theworldrace.org
