Currently in: Draganesti-Olt, Romania
I travelled to West Africa with my college in 2008. There is something about an organized program that makes me feel safe, secure, and comforted.
On the first day in the village, I was ushered into a stranger’s room to take an afternoon nap. As I curled up in the bed, I snuck peeks of my surroundings. There was a Muslim woman who didn’t understand any English breastfeeding in the corner of the room. As the wind caught the curtain separating us from the outside world, I saw scantily clothed children playing in the dirt.
Then it hit me.
I was several hours away from a legitimate hospital. If something happened, it would be one heck of a difficult time to get help. The security I felt being under an organized program was suddenly stripped away.
It was just me in the world.
We can have our fancy jobs and insurance. We can have clean water and safe cars. We can have a supportive family and access to top notch hospitals.
But without Jesus, isn’t it all an illusion?
It only takes one second for us to be ripped away from the things in this world that makes us feel secure. People might think that the Race is a break from “the real world” but we are simply living life that looks different from what people might choose for themselves. One that radically finds security in Jesus rather than in our careers.
So I go back to those questions people had asked at the beginning of the year.
What about your job?
What about money?
What if you die?
In nine months, I’ve learned that if you trust in Jesus with every fiber of your being, there is absolutely no reason for those to questions to come up.
This year, I have been in the ocean with limited swimming ability and stung by jellyfish, a few feet away from a poisonous snake in the wild, ran out of a burning hostel, drank questionable water, suffered the horrid repercussions of eating raw vegetables given to me by sweet Cambodian children, slept in the presence of malarial mosquitoes, got into more vehicles with questionable drivers than I could count…and there’s still another two months left!
I’ve experienced what it feels like to walk away from the guise of the security of what one might consider a “stable life.” But you know what? I have felt more peace and freedom than I ever have in my life. Even in death, Jesus is always with me and that is the greatest security of all.
