Ok, so I have some exciting news about the Race but there’s a little bit of backstory I want to share first and I tend to ramble so…just hang on and read this all the way through, I promise it’s worth it 🙂
So to start off, my World Race Squad has a group chat. We’re at about 50 right now and we’re from all over the country, so you can imagine how crazy that is. But basically we text every once in a while, sometimes about what the Lord is speaking to us at the moment, or questions we have about the Race, and anything in between. Drew, our squad’s advisor, also chimes in from time to time to answer any questions we have (and send us a meme or two :).
Sometime last fall, someone sent a link to a podcast on Spotify called On the Race (I’ll put all the links at the end of this blog). It’s a group of guys who are actually on the World Race Gap Year right now, and they talk about things like fundraising, training camp, community on the Race and so much more. Listening to it has been a really cool way for me and my squad to bond over our expectations/fears about the race, and I’ve been learning a lot more about what the Race will look like.
Anyway, life goes on, and sometime in January, one of the girls in my squad sent a link to a video called “World Race Q&A Mukbang” with some girls who are in Quito, Ecuador right now on the Race. A lot of kids on the race vlog as a way to share what they’re doing with their supporters, so a World Race video wasn’t that new to me, but I watched it anyway. About halfway through, a guy from their squad joined the girls as they answered some questions their friends back home had about the Race, and I realized that I recognized his voice! He was from the podcast! Then I got excited about being able to see more of the ministry and squad that I’d been hearing so much about, so I went to this girl’s Youtube channel to watch more of her videos. Her name’s Julia Washburn, and it turns out that when they were in South Africa, their squad split up – half of them went to Johannesburg while the other half (her team and two other all-girl teams) went to Jeffrey’s Bay. So I didn’t really get to see what the podcast guys had done in South Africa, but I saw a lot of what these girls were doing, working with kids in Jeffrey’s Bay and I loved it (I’ll get back to that in a minute).
So *time skip to this week*, I was reading World Race blogs. As a Racer, you’re kinda required to keep up a blog so you can share what the Lord’s doing with the people back home and also, it’s a good way to process everything that’s going on. For me, preparing to go on the Race, it’s a way to see what my life may look like on the Race. I went on the World Race website, clicked on the first blog I saw, and guess what?!? It was a blog by Sarah Barnes, the other girl in Julia’s video!
I ended up reading a bunch of Sarah’s blog posts, and then Julia’s, and at this point, I have just heard and seen so much of this squad’s Race and ministry. I found myself imagining what it would be like to live in these places for months, to serve God in these ministries, but then I realized – I’m not going to South Africa or Ecuador. While, yes, I am going on the World Race, every route is so different. Even with the information I have now about the ministries my squad is supposed to work with and the countries we’re scheduled to go to, it could all change.
I had a meeting with my mission pastor a couple of weeks ago, and one thing that he told me that really stood out to me was to not have too many expectations. If I go on the Race with the idea that I’m going to hear from God and find direction and then go to college and live that out, I’m going to have a terrible experience. Not because it’s bad to hear from God or anything like that, but because then when trials come on the Race, and I’m in the middle of a dry season, I’ll be miserable because my purpose for going and expectations aren’t being fulfilled.
If I want to hear from the Lord on this trip and truly have my life changed, I have to go with a mindset of surrender. I’m surrendering all of myself to God for nine months, to use me in whatever ways He sees fit. Whether that means working in construction ministry or at children’s Care points for 3 months, I’ll do it because I know that in anything I do for Him, there will be fruit.
In the middle of all of that^ going on in my head, a couple of the other routes going on Gap Year in September have gotten a country added. Someone brought it up in the group chat this week, and we all got excited about maybe going to Thailand too. And then Drew said route changes were always on the table, but right now they weren’t working on one for us.
AND THEN (sorry last time), we found out that our squad is going to SOUTH AFRICA!!!!!
I don’t know all of the reasons why this happened, but in month three of the Race, after spending two months in eSwatini, my squad will be splitting up between the girls and guys. All of the girls will be traveling to Jeffrey’s Bay, SA – the SAME PLACE Julia, Sarah, and the podcast guys were doing ministry. We’ll even be at the same school they were at for a couple of weeks. While the guys on my squad stay in eSwatini doing outreach ministry, the girls will be teaching classes and helping with improvement projects at Global Leadership Academy – the same school where the other squad helped build a new classroom! In the afternoons, we’ll also be involved in a lot of different community outreach.
So that’s what’s going on with my Race right now! Please continue to keep me and my squad in prayer as we get ready to go to eSwatini, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Cambodia, and especially that I’ll be letting go of all of my expectations for this trip and completely surrendering to the Lord’s will in all of this.
– Anjali 🙂
On the Race podcast – https://open.spotify.com/show/4nxZv7qhyoxNdVjzhKLOL9?si=NDVnAWHmRP2JjfusB63qw
World Race Q&A video – https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=bBoLitsSLPY
South Africa Vlog – https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yVbmEyeTffI
Julia’s World Race blog – https://juliawashburn.theworldrace.org/?_ga=2.83845844.33263177.1585714227-1190527121.1585714227
Sarah’s World Race blog – https://sarahbarnes.theworldrace.org
