“…And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Esther 4:14b (ESV)

 

I had never heard of Adventures in Missions or The World Race before March 2013. 

For about a month leading up to the discovery, I had been talking to a couple friends about how I had become disillusioned with, essentially, the pursuit of my own dream. About how I had been struggling with the idea that I was chasing after the security that I anticipated finding in the realization of that dream. About how displeased I was when I realized that I had been trying to find my own identity in stability, the stability that I was sure I was going to find with every new promising opportunity right before it got pulled out from under me.

About how there had to be more to life than the pursuit and realization of my own petty dreams and my own regular paycheck.

And then I ‘accidentally’ found The World Race through a Google search. I don’t even remember the terms I was searching. But I was searching for more. I was searching for the life more abundantly that was promised in John 10:10.

I had this instinct, this gut feeling, as soon as I read the statement at the top of the site:

“There is more to life than empty traditions, routines, and working 9-5…”

I knew I had found what I didn’t know I was looking for.

Over the past three years, I have developed one plan after another about the things that I’m going to do with my life. But it was never long before my circumstances would change, or another opportunity would present itself, and I would change my mind. I stuck with each plan for about two or three weeks before I gave up on it or moved on for one reason or another. Usually because I became disillusioned with my own plans, which had most likely come out of some kind of desperation to move on with my life.

So I did not jump on the application right away. I gave it a month. I gave myself time to move on, to let it go, to change my mind. 

But I didn’t change my mind.

The time and prayer just made me even more convinced that God was calling me to The World Race. That God was calling me to the new Spanish route. (…Yeah, I know. Just wait.)

I told my sister. Very insecurely. And she said, yeah, go for it. (Well, first, in true ‘my sister’ fashion, she said, “How are you going to pay for that?” But then she said, Yeah, you should do it.) And then I moved on to my parents. 

This was no longer one of those “Maybe I’ll go to grad school,” “Maybe I’ll move to the beach,” “Maybe they need English teachers in Hawaii” kind of plans. This was a suddenly a real plan that real people knew about and supported.

So I kept praying that God would put me where He needed me.

And then I accidentally applied to Route 3.

Ask me how I did that. I don’t even know, really.

I had been considering both of them but had decided that the Spanish route was for me. Yet immediately I just had this peace about it. Like I was supposed to just go with it. So I did.

And the more time went by, the more invested I got in Route 3. The more excited I got about Route 3 and the A-Squad.

Fast forward to August when I found out that Training Camp started on the 12th, the same day one of my best friends–and college roommate–was getting married. And I just got this anxiety. The anticipation of arriving late to Training Camp, about not meeting everyone at the airport and being there from the beginning and being part of the group from the beginning got to me.

Because it’s very difficult for me to form new relationships. Especially to try to do it. On purpose. 

I grew up in a small town, and when I graduated from high school, I basically had the same friends that I made in first, second, and third grade. When I went to college, I had not formed a new relationship with someone who didn’t just happen into my life through mutual friendships since I was 8 years old. These people stick with me, good and bad, because they know me, and it’s really intimidating to try to let someone know me when they don’t love me already in spite of myself. Because I don’t have a lot of experience with forming new relationships, my tendency is just to kind of buckle under the pressure, to focus on the seeming enormity of the situation, and not really do anything at all. 

(The good news is that, eventually, the people, they warm up to me. Because once I get comfortable, people seem to somehow, for some reason that I have never understood, just be drawn in to the unfiltered sarcasm and tragic awkwardness that is my life and personality. And I’m sure that is only because of God and His intuitive knowledge that I need people because I have definitely got to say, it has very little to do with me being confident in my own perpetual quirkiness.) 

I went into the last week with more insecurities about my own struggles and inadequacies than luggage.

In my own mind, there were so many things about me and my “accidental” place on the A-Squad that were supposed to disqualify me from everything great about this experience. 

Not only that, I was afraid of losing it altogether. I had this fear of another opportunity, another ‘sure thing,’ another plan, another desire, being pulled out from under me. I was afraid of losing my plan again.

Then, I met the A-Squad.

My Accidental Squad. My accidental new family. 

And I heard their stories and their ‘crap.’ I told them some of my story and my ‘crap.’

They embraced me.

They embraced me even though I had walls around my heart. They embraced me even with my backpack full of insecurity. They embraced me the way that I desperately wanted and needed even though I didn’t fully allow them to because I was caught up in my own head.

And I don’t really know them yet.

And they don’t really know me yet. 

We have only scratched the surface.

I know that they’re passionate about the Gospel and spreading it and loving people and being to the world the Light that’s not hidden under a bowl. That they’re passionate about being a city on a hill.

And they know that I’m a mess. (It’s really an interesting idea to jump into a relationship ‘flaws first.’)

I didn’t think it was possible to love people so much so quickly, but I do. I love them.

The A-Squad is my needle in a haystack.

And I’m excited about being a part of this group, this squad, this family. And getting to know them better. I’m eager to grow more and more comfortable in this group and to allow them to know me. And not just because I’m really cool, although obviously also because of that, but because it’s just nice to be known.

This week of Training Camp has been one of the strangest, most challenging, most revealing, most intentional, most ridiculously in-my-face weeks of my entire life.

And God showed up, and He showed me that I am even more messed up than I thought I was. That I had even more disqualifiers than even I thought I had.

This morning, I heard a Bethel Atlanta Podcast called “We Are Qualified,” and Scott Thompson said, “Disqualifiers are only disqualifiers if you see them as disqualifiers…There are no disqualifiers in life except the ones that you accept.”

Because Jesus is my qualifier.

Because God calls us qualified, because He called us, there is not a scheme of the enemy, not a man on Earth [not even myself] that can call us disqualified.

I laughed. I cried. I was excited and happy and scared and lost and found and tired and cold. I didn’t sleep much. Or shower much. And I walked around with abnormally terrible hair for a week.

And I loved all of it.

But it wasn’t really an accident.

And after the past week, I know that this squad has to be the most ‘on-purpose’ group of people I have ever experienced. Because God has a plan. And not one person in that group is there by accident.

Not even me.

 

 

“In this needle and haystack life
I found miracles there in your eyes
It’s no accident we’re here tonight
We are once in a lifetime”

(Switchfoot)