By no means was I born into a Christian home, nor did I choose to associate with Christians. Rather, it was my objective to make Christians feel uncomfortable and doubt their faith. I was living the life, so to speak…. I was partying and living for money… so I could party. This cyclical pattern is what I called my life. One night, I was camping with a buddy in Lafayette, GA. We were on our backs peering at the heavens. In Lafayette there is no pollution. Due to this, you can see more stars than the human mind can fathom. I was in my own world in utter amazement of how “neat” our earth was. My friend nudged me and uttered something to the effect of: “Amazing that God made all of this.” I responded quickly with something along the lines of, “come on man…. there is no God… don’t be so foolish.” He said, How do you think all this stuff got here?” In a defensive tone I responded, “I heard something exploded and that is good enough for me.” He responded with some interesting facts from NASA about the precise geographic location and tilt of the earth that allowed us to survive. That was the seed that changed my life.
Three years later I was dating this girl and she made me go to church. After she asked me how I felt about church and I responded, “I did not hate it.” Somehow i got sucked in to going to this youth thing called 7:22 (Louio Giglio). I loved it and was hooked. I started my personal walk with Jesus at that point in time. I remember that it was October 2001, but there is no date in my mind. I am a skeptic and on top of that I am driven by knowledge. So I dove into the word, I dove into the dictionary, I asked questions, and I prayed for answers. All my friends told me they never saw a Christian grow so fast, I just wanted to know God more and understand His ways. One day a friend was praying for me and told me that he thought I would be a missionary. I told him he was mistaken, I was content to be in America.
Fast forward to December 2005. That is when I met my the most beautiful woman in all existence. Shortly after we met she became delusional enough to date me. Early in our dating God gave her dreams of our future. Not like hey I have a dream, but she fell asleep and God gave he dreams, then she woke up. In her dreams we were in third world countries sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. We were using our spiritual gifts to enhance the Kingdom of God. In particular, I was preaching and she was singing worship songs. As I recall we were also praying for people and the power of God would come. I want to tell you that people were getting set free from bondage and physical conditions, but that part is fuzzy. I will ask her and update.
So we have been going about our lives keeping that dream in mind. I have a friend named Aaron who was willing to forsake everything he owned for a chance to see the world. I had a deep admiration and respect for my friend and hoped that one day I would have a chance to follow in his footsteps. The more I though about the prospect of the World Race, the greater my desire to go increased. I found myself growing frustrated with consumerism and materialism. I hear myself whining about my day even though at no point was I hungry or cold. I prayed about going on the trip for a few weeks without telling anyone about it. Within the uttermost places of my heart an excitement was beginning to grow at an alarming rate. One night my excitement reached a crescendo and I decided to tell my wife about this desire. We were dining at my favorite restaurant in the world, just a hole in the wall Mexican joint. We were sitting around, discussing life and I told them about the trip and what it was about. They both found the idea to be really fascinating! My wife seemed into the idea, I was filled with even more elation. Shortly after I had told them about my passion a friend I had not seen in six years walked in. We started chatting and exchanging pleasantries. He informed me that he was about to leave on the World Race. That odd “coincidence” got me even more excited. For the next few months Erika and I prayed over the idea and truly believe that God wanted us to go on this race.
