They wont all be this long, I swear.
I’m speechless as I sit here typing out my first blog in the main lobby of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, TX. It’s really happening. IT’S REALLY HAPPENING. 11 countries, 11 months, sharing the good news and spreading love to the nations. The list for next August is Spain, Morocco, Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and China. To say my emotions are jumping for joy would be an understatement.
As I wait for my community group to show up for our Thursday night meeting, so many questions are running through my head. I fully expect everyone I share my story with to have the same set of questions. How did your journey with God get to this point? How does a 27 year old who is deeply rooted in his career uproot his life and give away everything he has worked for? What are you going to do once you get back? How can you raise all this money in time?
I am here to tell you that yes, these questions and hundreds more have flooded my brain, but God has given me the greatest sense of peace and understanding about the decision He has helped me make. I am fully confident that He will provide and through faith and prayer, I will be taken care of by the big man upstairs.
I want to share with all of you how I came to this point of making the decision and why I do not have a single worry in the world about it. I will skip over the testimony of how I became a Christian at the age of 5 and really share the last two years of my life; and man will this hit you in the feels.
Lukewarm. That’s the only way to describe my faith as I was living in Chicago 2 years ago. God opened my eyes and I finally realized I needed to get back into church. As soon as I found a great church in downtown Chicago, you guessed it, I moved to Dallas. I kept asking myself why I moved. Is moving across the country for a good job really worth it? It was the best decision I have ever made in my life besides accepting God into my life. I found “The Porch”. If you haven’t ever heard of “The Porch” at Watermark, please oh please look into it. Shane and Shane (best worship band in the land) rock out the worship for 3500+ 20 and 30 year olds. Tuesday nights at 7pm, not one perfect person steps into this church. A bunch of broken sinners, who understand how Jesus died for those sins, are who show up.
I could go on and on about this church but I have more unbelievable signs God revealed to me about this decision. One of them being a friend that I hadn’t talked to in ages just showing back up in my life. Jessy Oisten lives in Scottsdale, AZ and comes to Dallas twice a year for work. She mentioned that she wanted to visit “The Porch” back at the beginning of this year. She is someone that can come into your life and relight a fire for Jesus in your heart. As we sat there during the message, we talked about missions trips and what we both would like to do. The World Race came up and it was over from there. Why did a friend I haven’t talked to in years just show up, help relight that fire in me, and bring The World Race up? Because God, that’s why. She is a big part of my story leading to this decision and I am forever grateful for her. I hope you all cross paths with her one day, you won’t regret it. She is the definition of a Godly woman living a God fearing life.
As I had just started researching the World Race, I saw how much it would cost. No way. Can’t make it happen. Too much debt. Well God said, “Scoot over.” I walked into work the day after looking into how much it would cost and my manager pulled me into a meeting. I got a raise for almost exactly the amount of debt I had. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
March rolls around and one of my roommates and I were walking home late from a friends. We stopped to get some food from the gas station when we ran into a man who did not seem to be in a sober state of mind. We had never seen him in our neighborhood. The clerk had never seen him. He caught our eyes and began talking to us. We listened to him for about 15 minutes and he was really struggling, crying to us the whole time. At the end of the conversation we stopped and prayed for him. He hadn’t looked at me the whole time we were talking and then something amazing happened. With his glossy eyes he looked directly at me and said, “There are people in the world that need people like you.” I do not say this for praise or to be boastful. I say this because to this day, I still believe this man was an angel. I think he was checking in on me, preparing me for the path God was soon to lead me down.
April 6th comes and the race is still just a thought. I bring it back up to Jessy in a morning text. About 30 minutes after I send that text, my random daily bible verse popped up from an app I have. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20. Pretty cool right? What if three days later at Sunday service the message was about those same verses? Not a chance right? Or how about that same Sunday night when Jessy tells me to turn on “Finding Jesus” on CNN. There is no way the first thing said as soon as I turn on the show is those two versus, right? I dropped my remote and teared up.
I have prayed over and over for God to open or close the door for me. I would say that He didn’t just open the door, He kicked it open. When God tells you to go, you go. You need me for the World Race? Yes God.
