“I’m hoping to do the World Race,” She told me.
“What’s the World Race?” I asked.
This Girl I’d only met once or twice explained to me what the World Race was during that 30 minute van ride back from a pool party that I hadn’t needed to go to, but had anyway. I’d had the option not to volunteer that night, to spend my evening sewing (my favorite hobby) or catching up on goat chores. There wasn’t any reason I’d needed to go with the children’s home I volunteer at to this pool party. There were already plenty of adults going to keep up with all the kids. For some reason though I felt like I needed to go that night, and now I know why.
“How do you get to do it?” I wanted to know.
God started tugging at my heart as I heard more about the World Race. When I got home that night I looked it up. I was even more drawn in.
“I could do this.” I thought.
I spent the next 24 hours praying, thinking, and reading more. I texted my best friends.
“I have something to talk to you guys about. It’s big.”
“Should I do this?” I wondered.
By that evening, when I met with my friends, I’d pretty much decided that I was going to it. I was going to apply for the World Race. It was time for me to do something. My friends confirmed this. I started the application amidst more prayer.
Now, time to back up about 5 years. It was my Sr. year of highschool and I had no idea what I was going to do the next year. The dean of students at my tiny Christian school suggested I work with some missionaries she knew to start a goat program in Guatemala. I’d never considered being a missionary, beyond the week long mission trips I went on with my youth group every summer, but this idea really appealed to me. I thought about it. I prayed about it. I talked to people about it. It seemed like a great plan, but then I did nothing about it.
Three years later, the idea entered my mind again. I prayed some more. I wrote in my journal. I talked to more people. I took a missions class at a local church. I met some awesome people. I got to go on a week long mission trip to Guatemala that next summer. “I’ll be back here in a few months.” I thought, and said, as I left Guatemala, but I haven’t been back.
This past summer I spent two weeks in El Salvador on a mission trip. This time my prayers were different.
This time I didn’t ask “Should I go to Guatemala?”
Instead I cried out. “What do you want me to do, God? Where do you want me to go?”
The answer I got wasn’t the straightforward answer I wanted. Instead it was “Seek Me.”
God had a plan, I needed to trust that, and rather than trying to figure out what that plan was I just needed to seek him.
So that is what I’ve been trying my best to stay focused on since June, seeking God, not worrying about the details.
Hearing about the World Race has definitely been the answer to my prayers. Getting accepted was amazing. I feel certain that this is what God wants me to do for the next year, continue seeking him as I go to 11 countries in 11 months. I am looking forward to seeing God work as I have the opportunity to serve his people and grow in my faith alongside others seeking him. I am really hoping that God will use this trip to show me what he wants me to do, where he wants me to be. Mostly though, I know I just need to continue seeking him as He will make my path clear in due time.
“The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.”
~ Proverbs 16:9
