Welcome! You made it! You are now a part of this journey with me! Welcome to my World Race! I am hoping that this blog will be a place where I can share my experience with others, a place of vulnerability and a unique perspective of what God is doing in me and through me during this incredible journey. Honestly the thought of blogging has scared me. Everyone has been telling me it is “super chill” but I think the idea of writing about myself and posting it publicly has been new for me. I have never had a problem writing, but for me, writing about myself is something that I have never really done before. But oh man am I excited! A lot of people know me as a lot of things outwardly. As the guy with “good hair”, as the guy who is funny and nice, as the guy who can make any situation less awkward, as the guy who is good with people, etc. But not a lot of people know me inwardly. And I am really hoping that this blog can be a spot where those of you reading can see that I am coming from a place of vulnerability and openness throughout this journey.
So, first of all, wow. Leading up to the point of writing this blog, all I can say is wow. Wow to what God has been teaching me, wow to how much I have learned and grown, wow to all that I still have to learn and experience, and wow to how much my life has changed in the past few months. I am incredibly honored and so blessed to be a part of The World Race gap year and I am so thankful that this amazing opportunity has presented itself. I will be the first person to tell you that getting to this point has not been easy. I never thought I would be here writing this and I never thought that I was capable of submitting to and trusting God this deeply. If you had told me a year ago that I would be where I am now in life, I would laugh and call you crazy. The Lord has taken my life and literally flipped it upside down in the past four to five months.
One of the biggest questions I have gotten from friends and family has been,
“Why?”
“Why the World Race?”
“Why now?”
Let me first say that I have a huge heart for missions. And more than that I have a huge heart for people. For just helping people and watching their lives change for the better. For loving others the way that Jesus loved others and for loving others the way that God loves me. After reading that you may be thinking, “well then the World Race sounds perfect for you Aaron!” and I could not agree with you more! But my journey to saying yes to the World Race may be a little different than others, it was something that I wrestled with for a long time.
Four to Five months ago, life was great. I was starting my Junior year at the University of Georgia as a Biology Pre-Med major. Coming off of an amazing summer, I was ready to dive head first into school and ministry. On paper, life was good. I had amazing ministry opportunities, amazing friends, and an amazing school. As I began my classes in August, something began to change. I began to feel like something was missing. I began to wrestle with God about what it was he was calling me to do and I was so confused as to why I was feeling this way. I would sit in my classes every day and just constantly think to myself “there has to be something more for me than this.” And I tried to shake that mentality. I tried to tell myself that if I just put my head down and got through school, I would eventually see the fruit of my labor. But I slowly began to realize that this newfound questioning was more than that. The mentality of “something more” would not go away.
The World Race had been on my radar for some time leading up to this point, but it was something I had never really considered because of where I was in life. So around the time classes started up again, I hadn’t thought about the world race for some time. It was brought up to me again in August through a friend/mentor who had previously gone on the race and this time it stuck. I started to pray and ask God if it was something he was calling me to do. More than that, I was asking God if this was something that I was capable of doing because I felt like I knew that the answer to my first question would inevitably be yes. Again, I tried to push the idea of the World Race away. But this time, the Lord would not let me. It started to become all I would think about. I started watching World Race videos in class during the day and reading current and alum racer’s blogs at night. I slowly began to realize that this is something that God was actually calling me to do. It started to become less of an idea and more of something that could actually happen. And that terrified me. Thinking back to that time now, I beleive realizing that this was something I was actually being called to do mostly terrified me because it took away my security. It took away the security of school and the plan that I had been building my life around and forced me to trust and submit to God in a way that I never had before.
So I applied to the World Race the same day the routes for 2019 were announced and got accepted about a week later. I was beyond happy and shocked at the faithfulness of the Lord.
Looking back, I realize I was so scared of saying yes because my life was genuinely good, and I knew that saying yes to the World Race would cause a lot of that good to be sacrificed. But I am now learning that God’s heart for his children is not for their lives to just be good. God calls all of us to live in greatness. And the biggest enemy of living in greatness is being content with just “good.” God calls us to live in triumph and glory in His kingdom, He calls us to follow the wild dreams He has put on our hearts, and He calls us to live in greatness.
So! There is a little peek into my journey of saying yes to the World Race. My goal is to simply love others the way that God loves me. To follow the “something more” that God has called me to.
And I get to love and serve others for Nine months! Starting in September I will travel to Thailand, India, and Guatemala. I will spend three months in each country building relationships with the people there, praying over these nations, sharing the Gospel with the unreached, being the hands and feet of Jesus, loving the poor and the broken, walking with my teammates in what the Lord has called us to do, and so much more!
Words cannot explain how excited I am for this. I have not left yet but my journey started the moment I said yes to God. I am beyond nervous, but I am jumping in head first and trusting God with all of my heart.
As I take this leap of faith, you may be wondering, “How can I help?”
Well, the first and most important thing is PRAYER. Prayer for safety, prayer for provision, and prayer for the Gospel to be shared and lost souls to be touched!
I am also in need of financial support. If you feel lead to donate, just click the Donate button under my name. I will be selling t-shirts in the near future so stay tuned! Please share my story as much as you can!
Thank you so much for reading. Thank you for being a part of my journey. I will continue to update you on what God is doing in the months leading up to my launch and of course what is happening while I am gone. I am so excited for what is to come. I would not be able to do this without your spiritual and financial support!
I can’t wait to tell you more! Thanks again for reading and being a part of this with me!
God bless,
Aaron
