On August 7, 2018, my entire squad traveled from Atlanta, to New York, and finally to Spain to begin the World Race! Our journey will begin in Pamplona, Spain where we will hike a portion of the El Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage hike that leads to the cathedral of Saint James the Great. It’s a wonderful opportunity for reflection and to build relationships with those who are seeking after something. Once we end our Camino journey in Burgos, we head to Mijas for some more training before taking a ferry to Morocco, where we will be doing different types of ministry for about 6 weeks. After Morocco, we will journey to Cyprus, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, where we will be tentatively over New Years. Then onto Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, where we’ll cross the Caspian Sea via a cargo ship over to Kazakhstan, then journey to Kyrgyzstan where we will tentatively be in April, then Mongolia for about 6 weeks, and finally we will end our journey in China in late June 2019.
This June, I was in Gainesville, Georgia for 2 weeks at training camp which is designed to prepare us for the World Race. Training camp is like a pseudo-church camp but for adults with a cultural twist. We slept in tents (most nights, other nights we slept in simulated airports, or while fitting 12-13 people in a 8 person tent), ate strange food which was sometimes delicious, sometimes not quite, took cold bucket showers, did fitness training (aka, thousands, yes, thousands of squats, pushups, and burpees as a squad, or running in hilly Georgia with our 40lb packs like we were being chased by a bear), had team-building exercises, training and information sessions, but amidst all of it experienced the love of Father God like never before and a beautiful community that smells a lot like heaven (and sweat).
6 weeks later, my family and I headed back down South to Atlanta for Launch, a sort of final conference before we’re sent out on the World Race. We said goodbye to loved ones, had some more training sessions, and after heading out early that morning, my squad and I sat waiting in the international terminal of JFK for nearly ten hours. Once we finally got to Madrid, had to sleep in the airport due to a delay with the buses (World Racers, that airport simulation is so real, y’all).
It is hard to believe that this journey is finally beginning, and I’m so excited that I can hardly think straight. After a long, difficult year of many uncertainties and doubts, it simultaneously feels unreal and like I am fully alive. As this journey unfolds, I wanted to share some thoughts and musings I had while leaving the States.
Before I left for Launch, I was able to grab lunch with a wonderful lifelong friend. We talked about a lot of things, least of which was this odd but privileged season of life after graduating college, where we have reached the age of real adulthood, and in many ways have begun to face the reality of mortality. The illusion of invincibility and grandeur that undergraduate life can bring begins to melt away, and you realize you likely won’t make it to the history books, that you’ll age, and won’t live forever. This can cause despair, since some say, the older you become, the less and less potential you have to make a difference or to change who you are. When I mentioned this to her, she gracefully disagreed and said there is always hope for tomorrow, and never a real reason to dread the future. “Now might be the best years of our lives, but it doesn’t have to be. Who knows, our ‘best’ years could always be ever before us.”
I couldn’t stop thinking about her steadfast conviction that there is always hope, that the present always holds such potential, and because of that we have no reason to dread the future, or cling to goodness from our past to sustain our present.
As I chewed on that awesome thought, I began to realize that in many ways, this is just a piece of a greater truth that life is such a gift. Not because life is always good, that we won’t have hard seasons, but because it is real. Life is not a simulation or fantasy, is a real, experienced thing. It is not imagined, not virtual, but in every way is a reality that is affected by our actions and the actions of those around us. How cool is it that you are alive today? That you and I have the ability to make choices, even the smallest of which can and will have ramifications across the reality of your life and the lives of those around you? And with each choice we make, there is always hope because we can cause change, and change for the better.
If that isn’t beautiful enough, God is also involved in our reality. A divine, benevolent Being has chosen to interact with us, and every moment we’re alive, we have a chance to experience His Goodness, to learn His Truth, to find His Word. Surely, God can be found in every corner of our reality; in the darkest places, His light can still penetrate, in the most malevolent situations, His goodness can still overcome, hearts full of the purest hatred, His love can still warm.
What a precious opportunity we have to live, to hope, to dream, to experience goodness and beauty, to seek and ultimately find a God who is present with us. This day, this moment, and every moment we take a breath, we have a fresh opportunity to choose life and not death, to choose goodness and not evil, to choose to hope and not despair. And we can choose these things because a good God has chosen us and to reveal Himself to us. In many ways, every day is a beginning of a new journey into the unknown; to varying degrees, we are all on the Race of life, we are all freemen at the beginning of a journey whose conclusion is uncertain. What we make of that journey is up to us.
So whether you are sleeping in an airport (as depicted above), driving in your car, busy at work, cleaning up after your kids, taking care of an elderly parent, doing your laundry, or writing a paper, this day is momentous. As my journey on the Race begins, I ask you to remember that today, and every day henceforth, is just as momentous, because you and I are truly alive, and that is simply extraordinary.
“Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull or boring it may seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s-syndrome child. Because in every day of life, there are opportunities to perform little kindness for others, and kindness is passed on and grows each time it is passed. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in this momentous day.”
– Dean Koontz, From the Corner of His Eye
