Sometimes on The World Race (and in any believer’s life), we find ourselves able to identify really well with the farmer who sows seeds and then moves away from the field and never really knows if his crop will get harvested (I don’t even think that’s how the parable goes exactly…and yet this is the most well-known version of it, is it not?). What if the soil that looked so rich and ready to bring forth life turned out to be full of rocks and other obstacles that are just too hard for those little seeds to overcome? What if no one remembered to water those seeds and the rain never came and so the little sprouts of green that looked so promising get dried out and shriveled up and all of your hard work comes to nothing?
As a seasoned Racer (can’t believe I’m saying that), I’ve found that everything they say about the Race is completely true – for us, the Racers, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We need rest and rejuvenation and it is vitally that we take care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. From a ministry standpoint, the Race is basically 11 short term mission trips back to back to back and every time we start a new month I remind myself, you only get one month here. The Lord can do a LOT in one month, but I in my own strength can do very little. Every month I ask Jesus to help me find the balance between insanely high and lazily low expectations for the fruit we will see in ministry, and every month He surprises me and awes me and uses me to accomplish His will more than I ever could have imagined. This past month in Malaysia was no exception.
My team and I partnered with a ministry that offers English classes and a weekly kids’ club hour out of a little house-turned-community-center in Kuala Lipis. Which actually served as a house AND a community center for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, World Race edition (my team of seven women was joined this month our squad leader, Mason. Naturally, our first order of business was to find an applicable Disney reference.). We had an amazing month in House #88, as many World Race teams have before us. The walls of our living room were covered with pictures of previous World Race teams and we had a little game of ‘I Spy With My Little Eye’ to find several WR alum that we know from Training Camp and the womens’ Beauty for Ashes retreat. What an amazing privilege it is to have a personal connection to the legacy of world-changers that have come before you in a place halfway across the world from where you first met! I was especially excited to discover that a team from my original J squad had been here just months before us and the only person that I actually met in person before changing routes had been on that very team! We could tell from the get-go that the Lord was and still is doing big things in Kuala Lipis and what an honor it was to be chosen by Him to be a part of the story He is writing in the lives the people who live there!
Team Nahar left Kuala Lipis yesterday and we have begun our epic journey to Thailand (travel day? How about travel WEEK!), but last night we had dinner with our ministry host, Mr. Kumarathevan and Ms. Josephine and during our time of fellowship they shared some incredible news with us!
For some of our students, English classes this past month were a family affair. My teammate Stacie and I had the opportunity to teach our only adult student, Gowri, while the rest of our team headed up the children’s classes. Some of their most faithful and engaged students were Gowri’s three boys- Thanusrau, Kannahrau, Vaiteiswaranrau. (It took us approximately three minutes to give them much less complicated nicknames, and two of those minutes were spent just trying to figure out what their actual names are. Welcome to Asia!) Gowri and her family have been loved and poured into by World Race teams for more than two years, and as anyone with any experience in relational ministry know, the lack of measurable fruit can be hard to swallow. Until that moment when, finally, you get to see the fruit and reap the harvest. After Gowri dropped us off at the bus station yesterday (did I mention that she basically became our Malaysian team mom?) she called Ms. Josephine and spoke tearfully about how much she and her boys already miss us…and then she excitedly announced that SHE AND HER FAMILY WANT TO START GOING TO CHURCH! This is huge, because Gowri’s husband and all of his family members are leaders in the local Hindu temple, and their home is full of altars and statues that scream of the bondage that false idols have them in.
In addition to Gowri and her family expressing an interest in attending a Christian church and finding out more about Christianity, they have invited the Kumars over for dinner. While this family has fed countless WR teams as an expression of their gratitude for teaching them English, this is the first time they have invited the Kumars over. The reason behind this invitation? Gowri told Ms. Josephine that she see such a unique relationship between them and the WR teams – it seems as though “you have met each other before and already know each other. You are like brothers and sisters.” What a beautiful example of what God can do when we share the gospel by walking in the joy and peace and freedom that Christ gives us! The Kumars are also believe that the Lord is telling them to start a church now in Kuala Lipis and as our team prayed for them last night, He gave me vision of ALL of the people that World Racers have befriended over the years walking into a church – Giri and Ijah and Gowri and her entire family – and THEY had become the body of Christ in Kuala Lipis! I have been able to share this story with three World Racers who lived and served and loved in Kuala Lipis before us and we are all celebrating what God is doing in this family as well as thanking Him that we have had the opportunity to be part of their story.
What a beautiful thing it is when the body of Christ can sow the seeds AND reap the harvest together! This is one of those stories that they will tell newbie World Racers about at Training Camps for years to come (as if P squad wasn’t already the most legendary squad in World Race history). The kind of story that illustrates so beautifully the heart of our God who goes relentlessly after the one, and is willing to do whatever it takes, however long it takes, to claim His children as His own. This is our God – who works all things things together for our good (Romans 8:28), not just those of us who already love Him, but also the ones who will love Him through His passionate pursuit of our souls. This is my life – that He chooses to use little old me, broken and messy and imperfect as I am, to be His light and show His love to every.single.person. that He puts in my path.
In this world we are like Jesus. (1 John 4:17)
We have sown the seeds and watered the ones that were already planted and reaped the harvest all in one month, and I am grateful.
This is the World Race, y’all.
With love and wanderlust,
Cassady
