I now get why the world race makes us take 16 hour bus rides across the mountains of Colombia rather than the 45 minute flight that would only cost maybe $10 more. It’s because once your ear buds start to hurt, the games on your phone aren’t cutting it and the melatonin starts to wear off at 1:30am, there’s not much to do but think and reflect. It forces you to talk to God about the things that you’ve maybe been avoiding or to busy to bother with. For me, it made me think even more about how I got here. How I somehow ended up on this freezing bus, while it’s pouring rain, next to a random Colombian guy who enjoys pushing my limits of claustrophobia. This next month’s “theme” for the world race is choice and so it naturally made me question when and how and why I chose to go on the World Race. Well the truth is that I didn’t necessarily choose this for myself. There wasn’t really a specific moment that I can pinpoint deciding to make this journey; it’s been a process with God gentling leading me to it.
The Lord chose this path for me. He put a bunch of circumstances together that led me here. When I originally looked into doing the World Race it was out of hurt and trying to escape. After a recent break-up back in the fall I remember thinking that I couldn’t just stay idle in Colorado for another summer when everything I loved about summer reminded my of my past relationship. It was to painful…So I thought, why not follow my dream to travel to South America. I’d been thinking and planning on going at some point in the near future and it probably wasn’t safe for a blonde, blue eyed, white girl of 25 to go by herself, so I better find a program or something to do it with. I remembered hearing about this thing called the World Race that someone from a past bible study in college went on, so I did what all millennials do, I googled it. And wouldn’t you know, they had a new expedition route to South America. This route was for those who had already done some traveling, were a bit older, and had a higher level of physical fitness… Plus the promo video was really cool and it included the top place on my travel wish list, Patagonia. I thought, well I might as well apply, couldn’t hurt.
So next thing I know, I’m online filling out the longest, hardest, most intimate application of my entire life. It probably took me over a month to fill the thing out. It was rough and I’m not sure at the time what made me be so vulnerable or have enough perseverance to finish the thing. If you haven’t seen this application, think college app but with questions involving every part of your brokenness while striping away whatever pride you have. It was by the grace of God that I completed it. Even when I finished it, I figured they probably won’t take me and if they did, I could always back out. Next thing I know I have an interview that involves me crying my eyes out on the phone to some stranger asking me questions about my past and shame and the possibility of going on the World Race. Again, I’m thinking who are these people and how did I end up crying during a phone interview?! And somehow I get a call the next day that I’m accepted to the August 2016 South America route. Once again, I accept the invitation and think… well you can still always back out. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t until I started fundraising and I had my first deadline of $5,000 quickly approaching that I realized I was in this for good, whatever “this” was. People believed in this trip; they believed in me; they believed in the work that the Lord would be able to do to me and through me. And then even as I went to Training Camp I didn’t realize what I had gotten myself into. Ten days of dealing with the pain that I was trying to escape (read one of my previous blogs for more detail) and doing some inner healing.
Even now I still don’t know what I got myself into. Every day I’m learning more about myself and the Father. As I reflect on these past few months, the truth is that “I “didn’t get myself into anything. I didn’t choose this at all. This wasn’t MY plan. If I had gone with my plan over a year ago, I would be married to the guy in my past relationship and enjoy the comfortable, yet broken life that I was living. The life of selfishness, only listening to the Lord when it was convenient for me, and ultimately being of this world and not the life that the Lord calls us to. None of this was “my” choice, and thank the Lord for that; because my best friend knows better than I do. My Father had this and 10,000 other plans for me in the works when I could only think of a few. I still like to do things my way, because it’s easier and honestly a hard habit to break… But I’m learning and trying and stubbornly, but ultimately willing to do this journey. I do believe in free will, but I also am learning that his plan is better than one that I could ever think up for myself. My grandma put it so well, “that darned free-will thing to often brings me out of touch with him. I am so glad that He loves me in spite of myself.” I’m so thankful that he chooses to persistently guide me down this path, because there is no where else that I’d rather be. I’m learning to trust and listen to the plans he has put before me because he obviously knows way better than I do.
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give to you.” – John 15:16
