We were asked to write a blog describing how we were called to the World Race. Here is my story…
I have never been on a mission trip. I studied abroad for a semester, but that’s hardly the same thing.
I attended the College of William and Mary for undergrad, and an overwhelming majority of students at W&M are incredibly service-minded. There are usually over 20 service trips every year in addition to other fundraising efforts for organizations such as the American Cancer Society and Building Tomorrow. Among those service trips were mission trips through various churches in the area, of which there were a ton.
Consequently, a lot of my friends participated in at least one service trip, whether it was spring break for Habitat for Humanity, or a week in Nicaragua at orphanages and in the red light district. I never was able to participate in one of these service trips, for reasons of timing, scheduling, finances, or a combination of all three. Also, a lot of trips filled up really fast, and unless you knew a guy who knew a guy, there was no way you’d make it in.
So I was surrounded by service-minded people, which is bound to rub off on you if you’re around it for four years. In late winter/early spring of last year, a friend of mine from VT who was taking a year off to serve as a missionary in Peru ran into a World Race team in Iquitos, and told me about the organization. I turned the idea over in my head a few times, but after considering it and meditating on it, I came to the realization that I was interested for the wrong reasons. The travel aspect was what appealed to me at the time. Clearly that’s not what the trip is about, so I decided to wait and see if God’s timing had something else in mind.
Fast forward to the end of September 2008. I’m in New York interning in the Iona College athletic department and working as a live-in caretaker for a pair of elementary schoolers. At work one day, I stumble back onto the World Race website.
Let’s back up and change the subject for a second. I love music. Some of the most spiritual experiences I’ve had have been with music, whether during summer camp worship or at a David Crowder Band concert. I get these experiences with secular music as well. The Lord just really knows how to reach me.
Anyway, for a few days prior to me finding the website again, I had had the chorus of “You Said” stuck in my head. Just the chorus:
“You said, ‘Ask and I’ll give the nations to you,’
Oh Lord, that’s the cry of my heart.
Distant shores and the islands will see
Your light as it rises on us.”
That night I’m journaling about the website and meditating on the Race in general, when it suddenly hits me: those lyrics that have been stuck in my head for three days are directed at me about the World Race. I’m not sure it could have been more obvious to me that God had plans for me for 2009-10, and they didn’t include grad school, as I had previously imagined.
So I applied. And I was accepted. The rest remains to be seen.
