great news!
I am FULLY FUNDED + $1 for the World Race! Hallelujah!
I have known that I would be close to the point of basically being funded for a few months because of monthly donators, but now that it’s official I wanted to let the world know how good and faithful the Lord is.
I first started researching the World Race almost a year and a half ago after I got back from my month long mission trip to Greece. I’d heard of 11in11, what AIM is most known for, where you get to travel the world doing missions by going to 11 countries in 11 months. It was always something I thought was really cool and could see myself doing, but it was never a dream I was realistically taking steps towards. In July of 2017 I went to Greece and a girl on my team told me about Gap Year, which is essentially the same as 11in11 but 3-4 countries in 9 months. Gap Year is also aged 18-20 while 11in11 is 21-35. I started praying about it right away while I was still in Greece and after I came home. In November I applied to Gap Year, had a phone interview, got accepted, and here I am today, living in Myanmar, a country I didn’t know even existed when all of this began.
Even though I just summarized 18 months in that last sentence, I want you to know how difficult preparing and support raising for the Race was (and still is). First and foremost, the Lord is good and his hand was in everything that made my Race possible. That being said, we all know that faith without works is dead, and in the last year before I launched in September I worked my ass off to be here today. When I first Googled the Race and watched all the vlogs, read all the instagram captions, scrolled through countless photos of the most beautiful places on earth, I was running on hype and desire to do the same thing. Most of that drive came from the Lord because I knew I would be building his Kingdom at a global level. What hit me after I became officially accepted was that I had a lot more to do than pack a bag and say “yes.” And for me the Race was a relatively easy “yes.” I knew this year was going to be tough but I also knew it was going to be worth everything it cost, and that was easily enough for me to say yes to. For others on my squad the Lord had to be the one to make them say yes. Leaving their family and friends for a year was not something they wanted to do, so committing to the Race alone has been one of the hardest things they’ve ever done, not to mention following through with their answer.
Once I was accepted to the Race, AIM created a profile page for me that included a ton of information on the rules/regulations of being a Racer (things like dress code, no smoking, drugs, or alcohol, etc.), medical information, personality tests, travel documents, past ministry bios, and of course, support raising information. I was also given this website to write my blogs with this huge bar at the top that calculated all my funds. At the time, that was $0 of $15,800. Not to mention I had to pay for all of my gear (70L pack, day pack, dress code appropriate clothes, shoes, tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, pillow, toiletries, mess kit, and everything I could think of that I might need living over seas for 9 months without knowing any of our actual living conditions). Let’s go.
Beginning the process of my Race was really overwhelming, which was actually the title/theme of my first blog. I don’t know how many times I went on the REI website, how many blogs/vlogs of other Racers I read/watched to try and figure out what I was getting myself into, or how many times I prayed for provision and confirmation from the Lord, but by far support raising was the hardest and most terrifying. I also don’t know how I got it all done while finishing my last year of college and working part/full time. I can’t see who actually reads my blogs but I’m guessing (and hoping!) it’s mostly those who financially supported me. If so, you’ll get to see my method to the madness of trying to raise $16k. If you feel like it, let me know how it was for you in the comments!
Growing up my family moved around a few times so thankfully I had a decent number of people to send support letters to, but writing letters, stuffing envelops, buying stamps, and emailing my mom like 30 times for addresses was the easy part. A week or two after I sent out my letters I had to start calling everyone who had received and (hopefully) read my letter. I summarized what I was doing and asked if there was a time we could meet to talk about it further if they were interested. I got a lot of voicemails so I left a lot of messages. I also set up a small number of meetings in both Grand Rapids, MN and Montevideo, MN so for 2 consecutive weekends I drove to one or the other from Fargo, ND to meet with old friends and members of my past churches. In the case of Montevideo, I hadn’t seen some of them in almost 10 years!
Despite the awkward pauses and the ever-present underlying question “will you give me money?”, stepping out in faith and relying on the Lord’s promises built the foundation of reliance in the Lord that I’ve needed to survive the World Race so far. And even though now I am a fully funded Racer just as the Lord promised, there were so many days/weeks spent in fear, anxiety, and doubt about being able to get the money in.
Phone calls that ended in rejection stung a little, but I moved on to the next one and tried to forget the stumbling awkward line of words that just came out of my mouth. The calls that consistently went to voicemail and were ignored hurt too. And the hardest was simply not knowing. If replies were unclear, unresponsive, going in circles with the same questions and formalities, what was I supposed to do? Continue to pursue because people truly are forgetful and there’s the chance they really may want to invest in me but may just need a reminder? Or let it be and move on, trusting that I had been obedient in asking and the Lord would work on the rest for me? I honestly still don’t know the answer to those questions.
Luke 16:10, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much” got me through my support raising process. God’s promise that if I was faithful in the small he would trust me with more was literally the only thing that convicted and encouraged me enough to pick up my phone and call people I hadn’t seen or spoken to in ten years. It was so freaking hard, but now so, so worth it.
Humbling myself to ask others for money was and is really hard, and it hurt a lot. In reality, my Race has cost me so much more than $16k and the painful growth of support raising. The financial cost is obvious ($15,800 + all of my gear and clothing + vaccines + gas to get to Minnesota + flights to training camp + all of the time I spent planning/researching/etc.) but now that I’m on the Race I’m realizing there’s a daily cost to living for Christ on the Race. I’ve had to surrender my freedom, my health, my preferences, privacy, attitude, finances, and of course everything from home. When I started preparing for this year overseas the only things I could think about were support raising and leaving my friends and family. The actual cost for this year was so much more than I ever imagined.
I want all of you reading this to know that I am not writing all of this to say, “look at me and all the sacrifices I’ve made and how good of a Christian I am.” That is neither my intention or my goal, but I do want to stress the importance of how difficult and how high the cost has been, because it has been worth everything.
I am half way through the Race and it has been both wonderful and defeating, full of days that make me yearn for Heaven and the second coming of Christ, and still other days where all I can think about is my final flight home and what American food I’m going to eat first. Even though I didn’t know the full cost of the Race when I signed up, I knew then that if only one person came to know the Lord within the entire 9 months it would be worth it, and it has. The Gospel is so worth telling.
The Race has been all of these things, but it’s only a trip and it’s only nine months, and soon it will finish. My life is dedicated to the Lord, however, and so my mission trip doesn’t actually end. The costs of sharing the Gospel look different for different people, and also at different parts of our lives, but if you’re willing to commit everything you have to him he will take you further than you ever thought you’d go. You honestly have no idea what the Lord will do in your life if you let him.
I never thought I’d be writing this from a beanbag in a hostel in Yangon, Myanmar, but here I am. 🙂
So finally, a HUGE thank you to all of my supporters over the past year!! I am not exaggerating when I say how important you all have been in getting me this far. You have no idea how deep the gratitude and appreciation runs in me; I am so blessed to have been invested in by you, so thank you, thank you, thank you.
And thank you to all my readers for reading this super long post, but I hope you got something out of it, and again, thank you for your support and love.
e
