It is day 101 on the World Race and a teammate on my new team asked us why we signed up for the World Race in the first place, what expectations we had and how those expectations have been met or changed. This was such a great question because I think many, if not all of us World Racers, wonder on a regular basis what in the world we were thinking to sign up for such a thing as this.
When sharing why I signed up for the World Race to begin with, I often only share the part about how God spoke to me asking if I was ready to follow Him now. I knew He meant that if I wanted to follow Him, I needed to begin by following Him on this journey of the World Race. Let me back up and give you a bit more insight into what I was thinking when I first discovered the World Race a few years ago.
Through a seemingly random series of events, I discovered the World Race for the first time around 2010. Someone at church gave me tickets to a benefit dinner for Young Life. Through the dinner conversation at the table, we concluded I worked with someone who this couple knew. My co-worker’s brother had gone on the World Race and remained working with Adventures in Missions at the time. This sparked my interested because I enjoy traveling, I enjoy experiencing new cultures and meeting new people. I enjoy seeing how other people do life and how differently things can look, but also seeing how similar we all really are. I also feel a call to missions.
In 2005, I did a Discipleship Training School with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) that radically changed my life. This was a 5 month program, however, and I felt that was not enough time. I feared I had not had enough time learning new habits and breaking old ones. I feared I had not become strong enough in my faith to continue following God and sure enough, only a few months after this discipleship program I began struggling in my faith again. Apparently, I did not know how to continue following Jesus. The World Race, on the other hand, was an 11 month program. I thought that would be plenty of time for God to do His work and for me to adhere to a lifestyle change. This would be enough time to break old habits and learn new ones. This would be enough time to change negative thought patterns and learn ones of truth. In addition, the World Race not only traveled to one country, but to 11 countries! I would get to discover the world unlike ever before. I would get to see more of God through His creation and I thought to myself this would be the perfect opportunity to learn to follow Him and grow strong enough to continue following Him after the program. I signed up for a route that began July 2011, but the timing was not right. I backed out and it didn’t take long before I completely forgot about the Race.
Fast forward to about two years later when God led me to a book written by Seth Barnes, who is the same man who started the World Race. Throughout the entire book, God spoke over and over again, “Are you ready to follow Me now?” All I could do was say ‘yes’. I had no idea what to expect, how this would really look or what the outcome would be. All I knew is that it would be hard. Following Jesus is never easy and neither is being continually stretched outside of your comfort zone or living in community.
We had Training Camp about 6 weeks before the race began. This was a time of preparation, meeting our squad and forming our teams. When I met the staff, the people who had all gone before me in doing the World Race, I remember thinking I have never before met people, and so many of them, who looked so much like Jesus. ALL of them! Every one of them reminded me of Jesus, but the Jesus they were made to reflect because their personalities and the ways God has uniquely created and gifted each of them shined through so brightly. I was drawn to them. I wanted to be around them and learn from them and become like them, but not to become like them, but to become the me I’m supposed to be, the me that looks like Jesus. This confirmed in my heart that this is where I was supposed to be and I had a hope of finally learning to walk with the Lord and reflect His glory by then end of this thing.
Looking back, the first three months of the Race were a far greater challenge than I could have imagined. My team was full of broken people who all came on this journey to do good, to serve, to know the Lord more deeply and to become more like Jesus, but continued to wound each other out of our own woundedness and insecurities. I ended month 3 feeling broken to the point I wasn’t sure there would ever be hope of something better. I was not sure I would ever know lasting change and move past who I was in order to become someone better and I was almost convinced I would not make it to the end of the Race.
However, the Lord knows what He is doing. He always knows what He is doing and He put this team together to bring up my woundedness. The Lord had to bring it up so He could heal it. The Lord used my team to bring all the pain and ungodly thinking and everything else that is ugly within me to the surface so He could heal what was broken and get rid of what did not belong. The Lord is our healer, not other Christians, not my team, not my team leader and not my squad leaders or squad parents, not the Adventures in Missions staff or anyone else. It is the Lord alone Who heals and He alone knows how to do so.
They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.
Acts 14:21-22
Why didn’t God show me this BEFORE the race? I thought the ministry would be hard, I thought the community life would be hard, but I didn’t think the ministry itself would be so easy (in some ways) and that community would be so painfully challenging nor did I anticipate such a deep, emotional heart surgery to take place.
Had I known the World Race was THIS hard, I would never have signed up. There is no way I would ever have agreed to this if the journey went as it had and ended here, but the Lord knows best what we need and the process it will take to make us like Him. The Lord knows that this is exactly what I need.
Month four began with team changes. This scared me because I was already broken and did not want a new team to have the chance to add to this brokenness. I did not think I could handle any more and then I began to discover what the Lord really had in mind. He changed my team so He could restore what has been broken. He changed my team so He could restore my understanding of community life and so I could discover first hand what sisterhood is really like and intended to be in His family. The Lord changed my team so I could know fun and laughter. He changed my team so He could continue to speak to me about who He has made me to be and so I would be surrounded by women of God who truly love me and who would confirm what the Lord is speaking about my identity in Him. He changed my team so I would know His love and grace in a new way and so I would be called forth into greatness.
This is a new season with a new focus. I do not know how long this one will last or how much pain is still ahead in this process of being transformed from one degree of glory to the next. All I know is the Lord is in all of it and over all and that this IS worth it. We are WORTH it to God so this World Race is worth it to me, no matter the cost, because in His love, He is transforming me into the image of His precious Son, Jesus and that is my hope. My hope is that by the end of this Race, I will look a little more like Jesus and that along the way, my beautiful Savior will be glorified.
PS. Have you noticed what my new team name is? 🙂 Team WORTH It. And as of month four, I can say that the World Race is worth it. God is good ALWAYS.
