Okay, so why the World Race? Out of all the missions trips I could have chosen, why this one? What makes it so special.
Put simply, because God said to. He knew that this was right for me right now, not last year, not in 2 years, but this October. And He knows best so I am going to trust Him.
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But you were probably looking for a more detailed answer than that.
First off, I am crazy about God. I am still working through patterns of thinking that put other people and things before God, but I am really trying to bring every part of my being to a place of complete obedience before God (John 14:15). I so want to serve God and love Him with my whole heart that I am willing to do the hard work of personal transformation to get there. It’s sounds a little cliche but it’s true.
Since I was a little kid, I have been passionate about missions. So passionate and fascinated about missions that as I grew up I assumed that everyone obviously must have wanted to become a missionary but only didn’t because things didn’t work out (family, financials, etc.). It wasn’t until I realized that it wasn’t exactly the case, did I realize that I had something special – I had found, to a certain extent, my calling.
Fast forward to 2017. A good friend of mine who is also very passionate about missions told me that she was going on the World Race, an 11-month mission trip to 11 different countries. I was happy for her but at the same time skeptical. I had heard heartbreaking stories from full time missionaries on the field of the pain and dependency short-term mission trips can cause and decided that while maybe that was alright for her, I wanted nothing to do with it.
I guess you could say that God has a sense of humor because He sent some very wise people in my life to answer my questions about the Race, and then let God take care of the rest. And that He did. I can still remember the joy on that person’s face when I told her that I had decided to go. Through my friend on the Race’s blog posts, I had begun to see that the World Race was all about equipping young people for mission work and supporting the full time missionaries working hard in each country, all the while bringing each Racer on a radical journey of self-transformation.
But I skipped something, let me go back. Rewind to July 2018. I had been feeling very empty; emotionally and spiritually. And what was worse is that it felt like I had lost my passion for missions. That scared me. A little later I felt God calling me to visit some friends in Kentucky, so I did. One day while I was there, I was talking with a friend and I was sharing how I was feeling like I had lost my passion for missions and I didn’t like it. And then my friend said to me in a moment of great spiritual insight, that sometimes to get that passion back, what we need to do is to act on that passion and trust that it will return. At that moment, God spoke in my spirit loud and clear, “World Race.” I felt myself blink and try to shake it off, but God kept repeating, “World Race” until in my mind I said, “Okay God, I get it. But I am trying to have a conversation here.” When God wants to get your attention, He is very good at it and it can be very distracting. From that time, I knew that I had to go on the World Race, and soon. And what do you know, my friend was right! As soon as I made a commitment and started acting on it, the passion for missions came back. Praise God!
So why an October launch. Simply put, I want to graduate college first. I am doing an online college degree program that lets me graduate at an irregular pace and time frame, so I will be finishing up my last set of college classes at the end of July 2019. That will give me two months to do final preparations as well as see friends and family before I leave the country for 11 months with a brand new BA in Communications from Thomas Edison State University! Hooray!
