Here’s my letter of complaint to Adventures In Missions (AIM).
Seth Barnes, the World Race isn’t what I thought it would be.
When I told my coworkers about this when I applied for the Race a year ago, one person said “So you’re telling me, you’re going to be unemployed and just travel the world for a year?” my response was, “well yes, but I think I will be finding out a lot more about life than you think.”
I signed up for the Race after I got a rejection letter from a Nursing program I was banking on. I was in the middle of an early 20s crisis (yes, they exist) thinking “what to do with this next year of life” … I found myself scrolling through Instagram and saw a friend had just gotten back from training camp, the Race was something I have always wanted to do but never could because of Nursing, but since nursing wasn’t in the way I figured this was the Lord telling me “Come away and see the world with me” So I obeyed.
The Race to me was an opportunity to gain more community in my life and travel and experience the world with a new family in Christ. I knew we would have moments of laughter, sadness, mourning, pure joy and bliss with these people who seemed like strangers at the time. I was excited to grow in community and travel the world. I knew going into this I wouldn’t be the same person coming home in November, which honestly made me a little nervous. This was a year of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.
But what I didn’t know was that I would find a deeper meaning to life itself.
You shouldn’t sign up for the race if you’re in it just to travel and see some wonders of the world. You shouldn’t sign up for the World Race if you’re looking for someone to fix your problems and pick up your broken pieces. You also shouldn’t sign up for the race to solve all the worlds problems, its not possible with you alone. It is possible for God to use you to bring light on the worlds issues and how you can love people through it. You sign up for the World Race to find yourself, not the self the world wants you to be but the self that God wants you to be.
The race is what you make of it, its a personal choice to dive deeper in or be content with where you’re at. AIM created an environment that helped me bring the Holy Spirit to life in my soul. It created a closeness with the Father that I didn’t know was possible. It creates raw and real relationships with Jesus and those on your squad. The race helps you realize what real community is supposed to look like, full of feedback, constructive feedback, encouragements, team time and adventure days.
On the race you really start to view people and the world through a different lends. You find the whimsy in life. Bob Goff described this word as “that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if only we take a few risks“
Have you ever seen something that just took your breath away, like a sunset/sunrise, a beautiful piece of architecture, or a painting or masterpiece from an artist a bazillion years ago..
I listened to a podcast the other morning about how we are Gods masterpiece, his “poem”, we are unique, one of a kind. Many times if you meet the artist he or she describes his or her masterpiece like its a part of them. In the same way we are apart of the artist (God).
I think you can tell where I’m going here.. but keep reading..
WE ARE HIS MASTPIECE.
We are a precise and concise aspect of God, we are to demonstrate a part of God that potentially will never be able to be expressed again..
Let that sink in..
Lets rewind back to the beginning..
In order to understand how we are Gods masterpiece we have to put ourselves in a position where we are FORCED to find ourselves. We have to get in over our head and challenge ourselves, get out of our comfort zones.
That’s exactly what the Race does. It breaks God and YOU out of the box society puts you in saying “you have to achieve this” to go anywhere or be happy in life.
Again, you shouldn’t sign up for the Race if you’re looking for people who will fix your problems, only Jesus can do that. You shouldn’t sign up for the race if you’re thinking you’ll fix all the worlds problems, but God will use you to shine his light in the dark places. The World Race was my “second” option to how I would spend 2017 but this is the beginning of living a life where I give everything to find out who Jesus is in me and who Jesus is to me.
