Longing For Home, But Leaving Again - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

2 Corinthians 4:17

Today marks my 21st birthday. Today I’m longing for home, content with the road, and counting the cost of leaving again. Before launch our men’s discipleship leader asked us to write a eulogy for ourselves—something, in all honesty, I thought was pointless at the time. But I was wrong. The idea was to write something we’d want read at the end of our lives, and then to lead our lives in such a way that that could be read truthfully. Months later, that eulogy has helped guide me in the next step in life. This September I’ll be going back out on the field with a Gap Year Squad—that’s you Z Squad! I’ll be going with them for the first three months as an Alumni Team Leader. Through that I’ll have the chance to impact another team in the way my leaders have impacted me.

This was a difficult decision to make. In a lot of ways it felt like a lateral step. It doesn’t progress me in career or education, I’m not doing it with the intent of finding my next step or discovering a ministry I want to join—any of these could happen, but it’s far from being the motivation for team leading. The thing that eventually lead me to saying yes was that eulogy. Or at least the heart behind that eulogy. I want to continue education. I’m going to. I want to work and be with family. Adventure and frontier, but family, friends, and holidays. But through all of that, through desires for now and for the future, I also know these are formative years. These are years that decide values that can set the course of my life. “The clay of my youth,” as Jack London called it. I want to be the kind of man who buys into the kingdom of God, who buys into discipleship, who buys into the call of 2 Timothy 2: 2, to invest in reliable men and women who will invest in reliable men and women.

And this is the chance to do that. The World Race has been amazing, but so difficult. I’ve wrestled through questions of faith, I’ve had past wounds brought into the light and asked to address them. It’s been difficult. But it’s all been good. And so much of that is due to my squad’s leadership team, and the vulnerability and desire for growth shared by all of teammates. Even the negative experiences have worked out for good on a grander scale because of the atmosphere that’s been cultivated. This can feel like a lateral step, but it’s an invitation into cultivating a similar experience for another group of people. People in the same foundational years that I’m in. People in the same search for purpose and passion and direction in life. It is a sideways step in the sense that this isn’t a step towards career, education, or family. But it is a step towards the type of man I want to be in each of those areas of life. And it’s the chance to walk alongside people going through the same perspective shifting, future altering journey that I’ve been on the past seven months.

Today I can say that I’ve counted the cost of leaving family again, of having to FaceTime in for my sisters 18th birthday and miss my brother’s volleyball games. But I’ve also seen what the Race gives. I’m stoked. To meet and live with another team of men, to be there at training camp and debriefs. The Race is something I’ve dreamed of and now I’m in month 8 of that dream. My heart longs for home. It aches for family and for that rest, but these are “light and momentary troubles”in comparison to the “eternal glory” we’re working towards in the kingdom of God.

Here are photos taken over the past year. The first few are with my flesh and blood family, the latter are with the Band of Brothers that I’ve walked alongside for the past 8 months. These are the reason I’m longing for home, but leaving again.

Graduation day – last day at Rose State