The first time I heard about the World Race was when a friend informed me about it. She described it to me as going on adventures and loving on people. It became an interest to me. I had always wanted to take a year off to travel, to find myself. This seemed to be the perfect organization to do it through. My sister-in-law took a gap year to Costa Rica, and I could feel the love for the Lord pouring out of her after she returned. The fact that could get the chance to do something similar, to have that peace, serve the Lord, and be a missionary, was satisfying.
Then reality set in of what that truly meant. When I started to research The World Race, I could see how someone would drop everything to go serve in three different continents. I realized I personally never had thought of going out of my country to be a missionary. I was comfortable with my life and what I thought I had in store here.
When I decided it might be worth giving a shot in pursuing this idea, it was brought to my attention that I had wanted to go on the trip, because I wanted to travel, not because I wanted to serve. I had to take a step back. I began to ask God to fix my eyes and heart toward Him and His kingdom. I had difficulty with the fact that the Holy Spirit continually convicts us to submit to Him and go out in the world to bring people to Him. I have always thought I was a good christian, because I believed in the death and resurrection of Christ and I didn’t do anything bad. That is not what defines being a Christian. What Jesus defines as being a Christian is loving the Lord with all our heart, mind, and soul. After I realized where I went wrong, many verses were sent my way. The main two that have stuck with me are James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” and 1 Corinthians 16:14, “Love God, love people.” Both of these verses are convicting us as Christians to love the Lord with all we have and go out to our neighbors, community, and world to love as Jesus loved. The more I pondered on these verses and the more I asked God to fine-tune my heart, the more joy I found in the fact that I would be able to go to multiple countries to bring glory to God.
It’s been a few months since I decided that being the hands and feet of Jesus was something that I wanted to carry out. As joyful as I was about this opportunity, it came with a whole new set of struggles that I’ve been continually dealing with. One of them is leaving my mother, I spend every open moment I have talking with her. Whether that’s talking her to sleep after coming home from a long day or a call while driving, just because I miss her. There aren’t many chances to be in contact with her while I’m in another country. This breaks my heart. Though, I know that in this instance, it will help me lean on God and my teammates. It may all be in His plan to fill that void, because He is the God of restoration. 🙂
With all of these circumstances in mind, I still am continually praising God for putting this opportunity in my life. I cannot wait to serve Him and love on His people in Swaziland, Thailand, and Nicaragua. I am beyond excited to see how He is going to use me for His Kingdom.
Thank you so much for taking time to read this!!
