I want to take a little bit to tell you just how exactly I ended up getting involved with The World Race and the events that took place to get me to where I am right now in this whole process… Pretty cool story, so sit back and enjoy what the Lord is doing!
If you have read my BIO, you know about my experience and how I came to know Jesus as my Lord, but if you ain't read it, let me give you a little re-cap and then the whole process will come together…
On February 13th, 2002 I asked Jesus Christ to save me and forgive me of my sins. This is the start of the process, because salvation IS NOT a one time deal. Its not about walking down an aisle in church and getting a "get out of hell free" card… Its about a daily relationship with the creater of the universe!!! Everyday when we get up, we should hit our knees first thing and ask God to help us live for HIM in all we do and say, because we are here for one reason… TO MAKE JESUS FAMOUS! So that was the night I started my WALK WITH CHRIST 😀
During the past 9 years I have been very involved in church and tried to be a part of stuff as much as I could. After hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, we did 2 trips with our church to help re-build and reach out to those whos lives had been destroyed by the storm. God humbled me so many times on these trips… it was an incredible experience, but very sad at the same time. On a funnier side note, I really DON'T like flying… Every meal that we ate while in Mississippi, was next to this air port where supplies were being shipped in… I remember specifically everytime a plane would fly over, I would announce to everyone around me, "I WILL NEVER GET ON AN AIR PLANE!!!" And now, here I am, 4 years later and 4 international mission trips under my belt… Preparing to embark on the journey of a lifetime, 11 countries in 11 months! The kicker… I still DO NOT like flying LOL… So this just shows me that God is smiling down on me and saying, "you have to trust ME, Dusty Dills, you have to trust ME." It helps keep me humble.
Anyways, back to the story… God really started opening up many doors for me to go and serve in foreign missions. About a year and a half ago, I first heard about The World Race. I checked out the website for several months before I made a profile… Even then though, in my mind, this was something I would NEVER do! The thought of being away from EVERYTHING I hold close to my heart, for 11 months… NO THANKS! I had an interview with Rusty Jackson though and he filled me in on more details about the program and I just told him that I would "pray about it." Which is a nice way of saying "No thanks, I'm good." It wasn't Rusty at all, he is a great guy! It was me being dumb and trying to not listen to the Holy Spirit ha ha 🙂 And sometimes the things that you think you will NEVER do is exactly what God calls you TO do… It all goes back to humility.
So… the past year and a half, The World Race has always been there stuck in my mind… It never went away!!!! I went to Peru last summer and people kept telling me, "Hey Dusty! You know what you should do?! The World Race!!!" I got home and would talk to friends that I didn't even know knew about The World Race and they would bring it up!!! Random people for no reason would start talking about it ha ha! I attended Catalyst in Atlanta in the fall and there was a booth set up for The World Race… This was starting to really concern me… I thought, "Could God really be telling me to do this race?!?!?!" Then it happened… I went to Burkina Faso, Africa in November with some people in the college aged ministry I attend… And I seen things that I could only dream of… like watching a REAL LIFE FOOD FIGHT where there are 5 year olds fighting to stay alive… people dying of malaria, and children digging through dumps for food because their parents have both died of AIDS… that really breaks you down. I also had the chance to meet my Compassion International Sponsor Child… That was when it all came together and I asked myself, "What am I doing for the Gospel?!" Life changing trip for sure.
Coming back home, I cried… A LOT. Not just when we left Africa, but for several weeks afterwards I would find myself crying just thinking about what I seen and experienced there. One night while cleaning my room I found the informational DVD about The World Race that I had picked up at Catalyst. I put the DVD in and watched the promo… I set in the middle of my bedroom floor and wept once again. WHAT WAS I DOING FOR THE GOSPEL?!?!?! I asked myself over and over, and really didn't have a good answer. And while all at the same time, since Africa, I had been praying that God would give me chances to serve.
Once again, I tried to remove the though of an 11 months mission trip from my mind. If I could only stop thinking about it, it would go away… Right?! Wrong. Several more times I would look at the site and do some research… and once again, more people for no reason would bring it to my attention. Three months after our Burkina Faso trip, our team all got together to talk about what the Lord was teaching us since Africa and how we were making a difference after seeing what we had seen. I once again, had no good answer. It was at that point I had had enough and I paid my $39 fee and sent in the application… I had an interview on that Tuesday and recieved the phone call that I had been accepted 2 days later. That was insane!!! 2 days!!! LOL… I was expecting 2 weeks!!!
On the phone, they told me I had 2 weeks to let them know if I wanted the spot… So as I prayed over the decision the next few days, the same 2 letter word kept coming up EVERYWHERE I went!!! GO. GO. GO. How could God make this decision any more clear to me? So, after a long year and a half battle to remain in the comfort of my little world, I broke down and gave in…. Here is the WILD AND CRAZY PART of it all…
This decision to go on The World Race happened on Sunday, February 13th, 2011… EXACTLY 9 years to the day I started my walk with Christ, and if that wasn't crazy enough… I was in the EXACT SAME SPOT, SAME ALTER, SAME CHURCH, that I prayed to ask Jesus into my heart… So… thats how I ended up being part of THE WORLD RACE, SEPTEMBER 2011! Pretty cool story 🙂
