I had never heard of the WR until this past December. Ever since Nicaragua I knew I was being called to go and serve, but I didn't know how that was going to happen. Initially I thought along the lines of an international relief group, so I looked into several and kept coming up with the same list of medical, academic, and experiential requirements that I didn't have. I had set a dead-line for myself of when I wanted to have quit my job and be doing something, anything else more along those lines. The dead-line came and went and I was no closer to finding anything, and to be honest I wasn't even looking that hard anymore. Then a couple weeks before Christmas a good friend mentioned to me this thing called the world race. Her daughter had heard about it at school and we both agreed that it sounded like an amazing program. That night I looked it up and read a bunch of the articles, watched some videos, and requested a brochure. I never got a brochure (still haven't haha). Instead I got a phone call. Someone was calling from the WR and was wondering if they could answer any questions. For me, I don't know if I would have taken this so seriously if that hadn't happened. If a piece of paper had come in the mail, it would have been easy to look at it, and then lose the initiative to follow up on it. But the call kind of shook me up a little bit. So within 48 hours of learning about the WR, I started the application. It took me a while to finish, partly because halfway through I had a small panic attack when I thought about leaving my brothers and sisters, friends, and everyone else I knew for a whole year. But every time I started to get nervous, God brought me down from that freak out with a renewed confidence. Soon I had the phone interview and I thought that that had gone well, but I was also ready for the answer to be a no. And part of me kind of wanted it to be a no. It would be a lot easier and a lot safer if the answer was no. A yes would mean a lot of work, opening myself up to a lot of hard things to be done in and through me, and it would stretch and grow my faith in completely new ways. Did I really want to do this? So I started to pray harder than I have in a long while that God would give the people reading my application the wisdom and discernment to know if this was where He did in fact want me to be. I thought that I was ready for either possible answer, but when I got the call saying that I was accepted, I was shocked. Before this whole thing started, I had never experienced moments of speechless, happy, shock, followed by tears. But these days, they happen all the time. God has already blessed me so much through the incredibly generous and genuine people surrounding me as I get ready for this trip. Thank you!
