I’ve been gone from home for almost 10 months now, and I’ve learned a lot. That’s what I hoped for when I left.
I wanted to leave home and learn about all the different countries we would visit, their histories and their cultures.
I wanted to experience how God is working in the world where their ideas are different and don’t limit Him in the same ways we do back home. I wanted to see new possibilities in God and watch him answer prayers and respond to people who are depending on Him for everything.
I wanted to learn about myself – my gifts, my passions, my calling. I wanted to learn what a life of leaving everything behind to serve God could really look like.
I’ve learned all of that and more. The World Race has stretched me in ways I didn’t know I could be, and I’m not the same person who left home back in October.
But there are things I still don’t know.
I still don’t know what I’m going to do when I get home. After a year of having your days planned and your decisions made for you, it’s hard to make important decisions about the future.
I don’t know what to do with what I’ve seen. The children without parents. The poverty and need. The devotion to lifeless idols. The good people who are trying to make a difference, but struggling to understand why it seems that the wicked prosper while the righteous face so much difficulty. The painful histories and the futures that don’t seem to offer much hope.
I don’t know how to take what I’ve seen and let that change the way I live at home. How do you live a life of dependence when you are going home to a place where all your needs are met? How do you make responsible decisions that affect the rest of the world, from how you vote to which stores you shop at?
I haven’t learned what it looks like to be planted in a place for longer than four weeks and really invest day-in and day-out when you may not be seeing the fruit. I haven’t yet learned what it looks like to give more than just a month to a ministry and allow my heart to be tied to something, with all the joys and difficulties that brings. I haven’t experienced being rooted and committed to a single work in a way that I’m willing to give my life for it.
I still don’t know what to do about all the relationships that have formed over the past ten months. What is my responsibility to the people I’ve gotten to know and learned to love? In the countries I’ve visited, but also my teammates and squad mates. How do I share my heart in a genuine way and still have more to give?
I’m still not sure what it looks like to come home to people who don’t know how I’ve changed and don’t realize we might have to get to know each other again.
I’m not sure how to explain what has happened this past year, how it has affected me, and how it has changed the way I see God and his world. It’s hard to explain that seeing so much of the world just makes you realize that you have only scratched the surface.
So I have learned a lot, but I think I’m coming home with more questions than answers. That’s a hard reality to face. But I think that’s the point. I don’t believe God brought me on the Race to give me all the answers, but to teach me how to start asking the right questions. That’s a much more valuable lesson to learn, and I will get to walk out the answers as I continue seeking him and discovering his purpose. The learning doesn’t end after Month 11, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
