This page is about my testimony. It is an honest account of my past, my present and the journey between the two. It also explains how I wound up on the Race.
When I was really young my mom passed away. Clearly this really rocked my family. From around middle school up to college I got more than a little out of hand and tried to fill the emptiness inside of me with whatever I could reach- drugs, alcohol, guys, girls- anything.
In 2006, my freshman year of college, I met a really important girl named Katie- she was the first Christian I was ever friends with. One night she picked me up and I thought we were headed to a party… but we ended up at my first ever Bible study. I grew up in a Jewish home and had very strong agnostic beliefs and so a Christian Bible study wasn’t exactly my idea of fun. You may not know this but there are a ton of people in America who have never heard the Gospel before, and I was one of them. Well I didn't understand a bit of what Katie and her friendswere talking about that night but I felt something that I had never encountered before- there was just something heavy in the air and I knew there was more to this whole story about Jesus.
I began reading the bible to figure out what this whole Christian thing was about and to see first hand who Jesus said He was… Around midnight 13 days in I realized that it was all true and decided to enter into a relationship with Him. That night was the first time I felt the Holy Spirit and the first time in my life that I experienced true joy.
For the first six months after I prayed to receive Christ God did a miracle in me- He removed my temptations and my desires to sin. I still drank for the first few weeks, not because I felt I needed to or really wanted to, but more out of habit. Then something terrible happened. I became convinced that my testimony was my identity. Someone along the way taught me that those things defined me and always would. I was taught that you take your past, shove it all in a backpack, and carry it around with you for the rest of your life. Every now and then you unzip the bag and show people what you used to do, you know, to give glory to God, and then you shove it all back inside and hoist it up on your shoulders and keep going. The weight was crushing me.
During the summer of 2010 in between graduation and this summer discipleship project I was to be a leader on I stumbled upon a list of 100 web sites every Christian college student should visit. I found the World Race and I knew that despite all of my plans this was what God was calling me to- and He confirmed it through working some crazy miracles in my life. I got accepted to the race, sold my car, got out of my lease, got the blessing of my then prospective bosses, entered in a contest to go on the Race for free, won, and launched on October 1st, 2010.
This Race has changed me in more ways than I ever imagined or intended. Through it God has taught me that I am not defined by what I have done, but what He has done for me. My identity is not in my Jewish heritage, the sins I have committed, the relationships of my past or anything else that I do. My identity is found in Christ and Christ alone. I finally removed the backpack and took everything out, item by item, person by person, memory by memory, scar by scar and threw them in the fire.
My name is Erica Kaufman
I am God’s adored, beloved, chosen daughter.
And so are you.
