I grew up in a church environment, and whilst I would say I believed all of the things that come with Christianity – God is God, Jesus is His son, He died for our sins, the Bible is His word, etc – I would say I only fully became a Christian when I was 13. This was at my home church’s annual youth camp, where we always have a talk every evening, and on the final evening of this year the guys speaking was talking about the difference between knowing about God and actually knowing Him. I realised that whilst I knew all of that stuff above, I didn’t really involve God in my day to day life, and resolved to do so from then on. Without going into too much detail, I really felt God come and change me for the better, since as I returned to the situations of my daily life the things that had been really getting me down for so long no longer mattered to me, and I further determined to make an effort to be a nicer person to those around me.
Before I came to Uni I spent three years working with Youth for Christ. I spent two years in a town in the Midlands, helping out with all kinds of youth work, from primary school ages (5 upwards) right through to sixth form age (17/18). We did lessons, assemblies, lunch time clubs, youth clubs, street work, mentoring, church work, residentials and more. In my third year with YFC I travelled around the country, spending the first 3 months in one town working in youth cafes and running occasional events, the last 3 months in another town based in a church and helping organise their youth work, and the time in the middle was spent touring around helping out in a variety of places. This touring included helping at some mission weeks in different towns, getting involved with national mission events and helping out with the youth work at Christian conferences. All in all it was a great three years.
Then, I started Uni, which I've spoken a bit about in my 'About me' blog, which has also been a great time where God has spoken to me a lot, used me a lot and developed me a lot. I've had ups and downs and have mentioned my involvement with the Christian Union, where I helped take it to place that was much more evangelism focussed, but feel I'm getting ever closer to who God has made me to be.
So why the World Race? Well over the last couple of years God has really been giving me a heart for the poor. He has spoken to me a lot about having a Global Perspective, where I understand where I am seated in the world and the benefits that come from that; an Eternal Perspective, where I start to assess my actions in terms of their long term impact and what things are worth giving my time and energy too; and a selfless perspective, where I become someone who is more and more willing to do the things that benefit those around me, even if it as at perceived cost or difficulty to myself. These things have made me want to be someone who lives a life that makes a difference to those around the world who are in a much more worse off place than I am. By this I mostly mean physically – the wealth distribution of our planet shocks and sickens me and it’s something I want to address in the way I live – but I am also aware of those much worse of emotionally and spiritually. Anyway, this grew in me a desire to spend a year after Uni travelling the world to see the need there is in the world, to see what God and the church are doing around the world, and to see how I, and others like me, can make a real difference. So a few months ago I started compiling a list of various Christian organisations who did aid work around the world – HIV work, trafficking, work in orphanages, work in hospitals and so on – to ask how I might get involved. My plan was that I would buy a round the world plane ticket and stop off in various places, getting involved in whatever was happening there. But once I started sending these emails around I was suggested by one organisation to look into the world race – and immediately found everything I was looking for in a year all arranged by one group. I was hooked. Not only did they look into helping out in a variety of situations in a variety of communities around the world, they wanted to do so going out in complete trust of God, looking for Him to do miracles. The race sounded amazing and I knew it was what God was calling me to.
I did spend some time thinking about my options for next year. After all, I could always go into further study, or I could train as a teacher, or I could work for the Students Union, or any number of other things (these things appealed most to me) which would all be good things to do with my life. But I prayed about what to do next, weighing it all up in my head, and one morning I awoke with the absolute conviction that this was the right thing for me to do next.
And so here I am, eager to see what will happen during that 11 months, and expectant of God to show up and do some amazing things.
I grew up in a church environment, and whilst I would say I believed all of the things that come with Christianity – God is God, Jesus is His son, He died for our sins, the Bible is His word, etc – I would say I only fully became a Christian when I was 13. This was at my home church’s annual youth camp, where we always have a talk every evening, and on the final evening of this year the guys speaking was talking about the difference between knowing about God and actually knowing Him. I realised that whilst I knew all of that stuff above, I didn’t really involve God in my day to day life, and resolved to do so from then on. Without going into too much detail, I really felt God come and change me for the better, since as I returned to the situations of my daily life the things that had been really getting me down for so long no longer mattered to me, and I further determined to make an effort to be a nicer person to those around me.
Before I came to Uni I spent three years working with Youth for Christ. I spent two years in a town in the Midlands, helping out with all kinds of youth work, from primary school ages (5 upwards) right through to sixth form age (17/18). We did lessons, assemblies, lunch time clubs, youth clubs, street work, mentoring, church work, residentials and more. In my third year with YFC I travelled around the country, spending the first 3 months in one town working in youth cafes and running occasional events, the last 3 months in another town based in a church and helping organise their youth work, and the time in the middle was spent touring around helping out in a variety of places. This touring included helping at some mission weeks in different towns, getting involved with national mission events and helping out with the youth work at Christian conferences. All in all it was a great three years.
Then, I started Uni, which I've spoken a bit about in my 'About me' blog, which has also been a great time where God has spoken to me a lot, used me a lot and developed me a lot. I've had ups and downs and have mentioned my involvement with the Christian Union, where I helped take it to place that was much more evangelism focussed, but feel I'm getting ever closer to who God has made me to be.
So why the World Race? Well over the last couple of years God has really been giving me a heart for the poor. He has spoken to me a lot about having a Global Perspective, where I understand where I am seated in the world and the benefits that come from that; an Eternal Perspective, where I start to assess my actions in terms of their long term impact and what things are worth giving my time and energy too; and a selfless perspective, where I become someone who is more and more willing to do the things that benefit those around me, even if it as at perceived cost or difficulty to myself. These things have made me want to be someone who lives a life that makes a difference to those around the world who are in a much more worse off place than I am. By this I mostly mean physically – the wealth distribution of our planet shocks and sickens me and it’s something I want to address in the way I live – but I am also aware of those much worse of emotionally and spiritually. Anyway, this grew in me a desire to spend a year after Uni travelling the world to see the need there is in the world, to see what God and the church are doing around the world, and to see how I, and others like me, can make a real difference. So a few months ago I started compiling a list of various Christian organisations who did aid work around the world – HIV work, trafficking, work in orphanages, work in hospitals and so on – to ask how I might get involved. My plan was that I would buy a round the world plane ticket and stop off in various places, getting involved in whatever was happening there. But once I started sending these emails around I was suggested by one organisation to look into the world race – and immediately found everything I was looking for in a year all arranged by one group. I was hooked. Not only did they look into helping out in a variety of situations in a variety of communities around the world, they wanted to do so going out in complete trust of God, looking for Him to do miracles. The race sounded amazing and I knew it was what God was calling me to.
I did spend some time thinking about my options for next year. After all, I could always go into further study, or I could train as a teacher, or I could work for the Students Union, or any number of other things (these things appealed most to me) which would all be good things to do with my life. But I prayed about what to do next, weighing it all up in my head, and one morning I awoke with the absolute conviction that this was the right thing for me to do next.
And so here I am, eager to see what will happen during that 11 months, and expectant of God to show up and do some amazing things.
