Man o' man, this is the final frontier for me. I have less than two weeks until training camp and 2 months until the Launch. One of my good friends left for the July route of the World Race, there are plenty of blogs being written by racers who are coming home, so that can only mean one thing: My group is next to leave. It’s really sinking in now. These are the last few months I’ll be here, and then I’m off on the greatest adventure of my life…
The great theologian (and rapper) Biggie Smalls, aka The Notorious B.I.G, has a famous opening line in his song “Juicy”:
It was all a dream…
The song is about him growing up as a child in poverty and then coming into stardom; the rags-to-riches dream that he had as a kid, come to reality. I was listening to the song as I was doing a variety of logistical paperwork for the World Race (don’t judge me), and it got me thinking:
Remember when you were young and you thought you could do anything? You know what I'm talking about. Think about it: you have that little kid that has been hidden underneath the underbrush of your heart. Do you feel it; deep down inside, pass the events you’ve been through, pass the lies you were told, pass the trenches of reality that has been dug down deep inside your soul, pass all of this growing up, you can feel the inner child still climbing on top of the world. He’s/she’s running through the woods of your imagination; dead wood, burnt leaves, charred limbs from the engulfing fire of reality, and although the embers are still hot, your inner kid is still going, still roaming around the jungle of your dreams.
But what happens when the fire is extinguished by the outpour of hope?
What happens when the tree of life begins to take root again?
What happens when he’s handed the key to his heart?
What happens when the dream comes true?
All of a sudden the embers become flowers, the dead wood begins to gasp for air again, and all that your mind has ever pondered about when your eyes were shut in the hours of night have become the very thing that your eyes are now opened and looking at. Forget the gimmicks, forget the images you see online, forget the stories you were once told of far-away places and adventures. You know there’s something more to this life then the ordinary standard of living that the social norm has thrown at you. And this isn’t just some Walt Disney fantasy or Universal Studious production. This is real. This is legitimately happening. And you knew it was gonna happen. And over and over you’ve replayed it all in your head like a referee in a game, making sure every detail hasn’t gone unnoticed. But this isn’t a game, you’re not in control, and this is not just a dream. This is the World Race.
As I went over my list of supplies for training camp, as the echoes of Biggie floated through my room, as I lift my pen to jot down some plans I had in mind for fundraising, all of this just hit me. All of this World Race mumbo-jumbo. Months of planning, months of fundraising, months of reading blogs of other racers on their missions trip. Thousands of dollars spent, hundreds of minutes used, multitudes of tears wept, and it all comes down to this; this dream come true. Travel around the world, making Jesus known, sharing love, giving hope, finding the meaning of life and the purpose of why I was made.
Now as exciting and surreal as the fact that the dream has become a reality is, I don’t want that to become the hindrance of my journey. I have taken steps towards the valley, but there is still much mountain to climb. Fundraising is still going, supplies are still being apprehended, prayer is as lively as ever, and preparation for this great climb is in full affect. There is still much more to be done for this little kid to conquer the world. But when it’s all said and done, when I am in the villages of El Salvador, the neighborhoods of Cambodia, the city streets of Australia, the mud huts of Malaysia, and the orphanages of Uganda, I’ll look up at the sky to my Creator and King and say to myself,
It was all a dream…
