Before coming on the World Race, I was asked many questions. From packing to safety, the questions varied every day. But the hardest one for me to honestly answer was “Why?” “Why are you going on the World Race, Taylor?” Now, you might be thinking this should be the easiest question to answer. And I expected the same thing. If you give up a year of your life, leave behind your family and serious boyfriend, and neglect to use the degree you just spent four years and thousands of dollars to achieve… You should have a pretty solid “why.” Unfortunately, I didn’t, and still don’t, have a clear and logical explanation. Honestly, I am on the World Race because the Lord put it on my heart four years ago, when I was 18, a freshman in college, and I haven’t been able to seriously consider another option after graduating from college. To put it simply: I felt called to go, so I went.
One day, I was discussing the excitement that the journey of this year will be (which was a refreshing conversation after all the other conversations about how hard it is going to be). We discussed the different cultures I will be able to not only see, but be a part of. On the World Race, I have the unique opportunity and blessing to not only set foot in 11 different countries, but to set foot in the culture. Currently, I am sitting in a Starbucks in Bangkok, Thailand. While this coffee shop is familiar, everything else about my day and my life is new. I take what’s called a Song Tao to get into town for ministry every day, I eat some version of rice and noodles every day for lunch and dinner, and I am learning the simple phrases of a language that is nothing like my own. Every day I go to work as if it was 9-5 job and serve alongside those who have grown up in Thailand. I don’t get paid, I don’t get benefits, I don’t get vacation time and I am not here as a tourist. These ingredients call for the perfect storm of change, resulting in an experience that leaves me upside down as I think and look at the body of Christ. In the coversation about the excitement of this year, my very wise supporter brought up the very real, life-changing truth that is one of the best parts of this year: I am getting to see and walk life on Earth with a more full picture of the Kingdom of Christ, an experience many of my friends and family at home will not experience until we enter into the gates of Heaven.
Woah. What a perspective shift. After this conversation, when people asked me why I was going or what I was looking forward to, I responded by telling them (and maybe even bragging a little bit) that I was going to get to see and live with my brothers and sisters of a different culture, skin tone, language and praise the same, true, never-changing God alongside them. This realization has changed my mindset for every single day here on the field. I wake up with enthusiasm and joy as I consider the journey God has called me to walk, living and serving alongside new brothers and sisters, praising Him in everything. And this part of my journey has brought me to tears many times as I look around and have a clearer picture of the family I will once be joined together with in paradise.
Here in Bangkok, we attend a western church on Sundays (“western” meaning it is all in English and the church service is a similar order to what you would find in the States). The first day we attended here, I left the sanctuary with very wet eyes. Not only was I able to praise the Lord in my first language (you don’t realize how special that is until you miss it for 5 months), but I was able to do so alongside my brothers and sisters from all around the world! The room was filled with people from every continent, nation, language, nationality, skin color, but we were praising the same God. How joyful it was to stand next to a woman from Lebanon who spoke a very different language, enjoyed different food and probably grew up very differently than me, but in the space of worshipping our King, every difference fell away. My sister and I live under the same eternal identity: daughter of the one and only King, Jesus. In this inheritance, we find true and complete unity.
I will never forget the picture that is the fullness of the body of Christ. For the rest of my life, I will no longer limit the picture of my brothers and sisters as white, English-speaking, middle class, well-dressed American citizens. The colors of the Kingdom are a beautiful, powerful picture of the loving Father we serve.
Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world! Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world!
“After this, I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” Revelation 7:9-10
