Right now I am in Pemba Mozambique. I’ve been away from my family, friends and home for over 1 year. I just finished my 11 month World Race trip last month and have started Heidi Bakers Harvest School to be trained as a full time missionary. It’s only been a month since I said my final goodbyes to my squad, my new best friends, my new family. I’ve missed them terribly everyday. I miss the laughs we shared together. I missed how they knew when I was mad. They knew how to make me happy. They knew how to dig deep into my heart and find out what was going on inside of me and how to pray for me. I missed the intimacy you share with World Race community.
So coming into a Spirit filled missionary school I prayed for community that could get as deep and deeper than World Race community. What I found was really interesting. With God doing amazing things in Adventures in Missions and so many people getting to know and go on The World Race, with over 1,500 World Race alumni, I found some community closer than I expected. I had the pleasure of connecting with not 1, not 2, but 3 other World Race alumni here at school!! Out of 300 students, there are 4 World Racers who all share such an intimate, life changing experience. We represented 4 different squads, different routes and different positions we held while on the race, it was beautiful.
We all decided that we wanted to get together and talk about our races and bond with each other, we called it ‘feedback’. So one day after class we all got together to share ice coffee, brownies and our hearts. This is why I love the World Race, we didn’t just talk for an hour, we talked for 5 ½ hours!! We laughed, cried and were praying for each other in no time!! We shared stories from our races and shared about the same contacts we had and what were our favorite months and hardest months. We asked each other how every ones hearts were doing and what their high and lows were of the day. We got DEEP, FAST, in typical World Race fashion. And we loved it!! We as World Racers know how to go deep in such a loving way and know that we need someone to ask deep, hard, challenging questions. You can’t really do that with people you met and know for only a week, but you can with a World Racer you JUST met!! THAT is why I love the race. No matter how long it’s been since you left the race, if you meet a fellow alumni, you have an instant, intimate bond that no one else can tap into.
So Seth Barnes, thank you. Thank you for hearing Gods voice to start the World Race. It is such an intimate, special experience that really is life changing. It brings me such comfort to know that in a school with 300 other students from all over the world, that I can go to 3 other World Race alumni and spill my heart to them and not care about them judging me, and know that they will pour love into me and pray for me. That they will give me constructive feedback when I need it and call me to a higher place with love. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have gotten to go on the World Race and the continual blessings it brings in my life.
So if you are thinking about going on the race, GO!! Go and have the time of your life and know that the community that you get out of it is unmatchable!!! Know that if you go and live in almost any area of the WORLD that there is probably World Race alumni waiting for you to love you and dig deep into your heart.
Anne (T squad) Pei (V squad) Joni (R squad) and Me (B squad)
