I can't believe I'm going on the World Race. I've wanted to go since…2007? 08? I don't know. I met this really crazy girl in Peru who had been filming the first squad (Oh hey Faith Luke Stansell!) and the seed was planted.
Pipe dream, right? There was no way I was doing that. That's what I thought anyway. I kept meeting incredible people who worked with AIM and I'd live vicariously through their stories. AIM was this fantastical idealized reality, but was not something that I was doing. My life had a path and a direction from God, and it was going in a different direction.
Then came last January. January 3rd to be exact (A YEAR AGO TODAY. WHAAAAAT?). The day before, I had been driving a friend home from Church and I got in a crazy car accident. My car got run off the road. The details are ridiculous (ask me…It's a great story. JESUS even rules in times of darkness). Long story short, I was without a car. I had promised my mom, "No missions this year." It was a sort of empty promise, and was one I'd broken every summer since I was 11. But this year I meant to be serious. Then I spent that day and the next with a middle school girl. Her mom picked me up so we could play cards at her house. It was really humbling. But then I remembered how much I loved people that were not my age. I'd been so caught up in college, that I forgot how much my heart connects with youth. So January 3rd I got a call at night from one of my best friends ever asking if I wanted to lead a high school trip with AIM. I said Okay (the same thing I promised God I'd say everytime He gave me the chance) and the rest was history.
I led AIM's ambassador trip to Swaziland last summer and all of a sudden, what had been a pipe dream became a little more tangible. It was like the difference between thinking about a donut and smelling it for realz. I met this whole culture who lived really far from Atlanta (seriously. Gainsville is in the middle of nowhere, sorry guys) and they all lived, breathed, thought, talked, and loved like me. I was home within 10 seconds of getting there, and fell in love with my big SiSwati family (Hannah P., Hannah B., Chandler, Makayla, Megan, Jessica, Lulu, Riley, Lizzie, Kira, Emily, Taylor, Marissa, Dethany, Kinsey, Rachel, Cait, Stacy, Jacob, and Josh). Seriously, y'all are one of the best things to happen to me. Swaziland itself may be a different story…that's still under review.
I came home thinking I was moving to China. I had big goals to change that country. (Really I wanted people to think I was responsible and had carreer aspirations after college). So that scared me and stressed me out. One day, I sat down with one of my closest friends, Justin Wong, who was going with me, and I broke the news…"I'm thinking about maybe, perhaps, sort of…not going to China." "Oh good," he responded. "I'm going on the World Race." My heart jumped a little. That's what I was gonna say. Maybe it's okay. Maybe adventuring with God is okay. Maybe being responsible isn't the main thing. Maybe being obedient is the main thing.
Yep. So I put off applying till way past then, but I knew I was going. Everyone kept asking if I'd applied. "Oh yeah…I, uh, am in process. I was still a little afraid for this to become real life. That meant that maybe my life's path would take some crazy twists and turns. If Cait Evangelista is an example, then that hesitation makes sense. But it is real life. It is okay. It's really the best form of real life because its right in the center of the Lord's will for me. Even if it doesn't make sense, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be going. So…Yep.
World Race. July 2012. Ireland. Ukraine. Russia. Kenya. Tanzania. Mozambique. India. Nepal. Cambodia. Malaysia.
I'll leave you with this, my answer to the application question, "What is the Gospel in your own words?" The Lord wrote this with my fingers. I laughed as I read what He wrote. It represents a series of seasons with Him that I've walked through over the last year. It encouraged me as I read/wrote it, and I hope it does the same for you.
Well…See you later!
"The Gospel is the most incredible thing I've ever heard, and I don't think I get it yet. Recently, I've been realizing that it is scandalous, ridiculous, and outrageous. I have to sit back and soak it in when I realize that I am standing in the Righteousness of the Son of God by the Faith of the Son of God through the Death of the Son of God, and am living in, by, and through the Spirit of the Son of God. The Gospel is the message that I have been created for relationship but am bound for destruction by my sin. By faith I accept the paradigm-shattering reality of the Grace of God so that relationship could be restored, redeemed, and reveled in. God was pleased to bruise His Son so that we could live in His love. The Gospel is that I was co-crucified, co-buried, and co-resurrected with Christ. That counts for something. I am a part of a royal priesthood and I can enter the Holy of Holies; why? because He dwells in my body, entwining me with Himself until I can't tell the difference anymore (because there's more of Him and less of me). I am a Son with an inheritance and have a Kingdom to establish. Out of me flows rivers of Living Water and the world is full of thirsty people who keep turning to broken cisterns. The Gospel is the power of God unto Salvation. The Gospel is the preaching of the Cross of Christ (the ultimate unifier and ultimate divider). The Gospel isn't Love, Peace, or Joy, those things are the fruits of it. The Gospel is the reality of the Cross and the freedom it brings (from sin, from the law, and from death). The Gospel leads to persecution, because it is so uncomfortable to religion, so external from the human experience, and so simple that it confounds the wise. But it reveals Life itself. The Gospel is not life anymore than the Bible or the Church is life. Jesus, Papa, and Holy Spirit are life. The Gospel is the revelation of trinity God, His love, grace, and power. The Bible records this revelation, and (ideally) the Church re-presents this and lives it out. JESUS!"
