When I was twelve I wrote out a list of things I wanted to do before I got old, married, and had kids. This list included things like bungie jumping, learning to skateboard, playing guitar, kissing in the rain, having my own car, going to college, and the biggest goal, the one that seemed most unattainable, was traveling the world. My twelve-year-old-self plan was to go to college, find my husband, be married by age 23 and have our first child by 25. It always amuses me when I think about how my plans and God’s outcomes never seem to line up.
In seventh grade I found an old globe in the attic and put it in my room so I could dream of all the places I hoped to go one day. Years later I drew out, in dry erase marker, on that globe the route and cities I wanted to hit. As a seventh grader looking at that globe and the list of things I wanted to do, I never expected my dream of traveling the world to come true.
After getting back from my trip to Europe with my childhood friend Lauren last October I felt very dissatisfied. We visited 14 cities in 23 days in Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia. We called it ‘Our European Sampler’ because we went so fast and saw as much as possible in as little time as possible. Yes I can say I’ve seen the Leaning Tower, the Trevi Fountain, the Pompeii ruins, the Vatican, the Eiffel Tower and so much more I don’t remember and can’t pronounce, but so what?! When I got back from Europe, tense and exhausted, I remember thinking ‘Was that really it?!’ I had expected for my life to be changed because of the places I went and the things I saw. The expectations of my dream to ‘travel the world’ were so far from being met, which brought me on the race. I came back from Europe with the travel bug and wanted to experience the people and cultures of the places I went.
When I first heard about the World Race I was a sophomore in college and my best friend Krisi was looking into it for the next year. I thought she was crazy, not only to take off a year of school, but to go around the world as a traveling missionary and raise over 15 THOUSAND dollars on her own! I remember when she told me she had decided it wasn’t the best timing and me feeling so relieved that she had come to that realization. At that point my view of missionaries was not too positive. I thought they were crazy and over-zealous for the kingdom. I could not understand God calling people to live so far away from home to preach the gospel and do it by living off the support of others. I viewed missionaries as socially awkward people with over 6 kids, that home-schooled, and never wore anything from this century.
Now I am that missionary. If God calls me to overseas missions, I am down! If he calls me to give birth over 6 times, I’d be hesitantly okay. And if you haven’t noticed yet in pictures, the clothes I’ve worn over the past four months would probably not fly as cute in the states. Living in a culture where I don’t blend in, where I am constantly questioned why I’m there and what I believe sounds ideal for me. Never knowing what the day has in store when I wake up sounds like the best way to live.
I was first interested in the World Race because of the diverse places I could go, what I could learn about cultures, and being able to live out how to share the love and joy of Jesus everywhere I go. The race has been so much more! I have begun to understand and walk in my full identity in Christ and am living in a community that loves and spurs me on closer to the Lord. We figure things out together, push through conflict, and become closer because of it.
My twelve-year-old version of traveling the world meant being able to see things in different places. God’s version of traveling the world has been seeing His presence, feeling His Spirit, sharing His plan of reconciliation, and understanding more about His people everywhere I go. His ways are so much greater than my ways. VERSE
I wonder if my twelve-year-old self would have ever imagined that in 11 years she’d be laying in a hammock on a veranda in the Philippines, listening to the soft rain, as the beautiful colors cascade across the sky and the sun slowly hides behind the mountains. Most times I cannot believe this is my life! That I get the privilege of building relationships with people and understanding culture in 11 different countries. That I get to spend a year sharing what the Lord has done and continues to do in my life. That I have the opportunity to live with and be refined by people who are pursing Him and desire to grow with me.
I am so blessed to be where I am, doing what I get to do, and I know God has huge plans for the next 23 more years and is using now to prepare me for then.
Father, I’m so thankful that my plans can never come close to the ones you have up your sleeve!
