As the Worldrace approaches, many questions that I cannot answer are being asked. To be completely transparent, I am being tempted to feel overwhelmed.
– How will you raise $16,651?
– How will you afford all the equipment you still need?(my camping backpack, sleeping bag, tent, hammock, etc.)
– How will you potentially go an entire month without a shower?
– How will you live out of a backpack for 11 months?
– How will you deal with the mosquitos, spiders, ants, etc?
– How will you be treated if you contract malaria while in South Africa?
– How will you react if you’re robbed in South East Asia?
– How will you preach when witnessing to 11 different countries with 11 different cultures and 11 different languages?
– How will you deal with going 11 months without a dryer, bed, family, current friends, etc?
– How will you ever get married!???(my mom’s favorite)
– How do you know that God has called you to do something so radical?
My answer: I don’t know.
These things scare me as well.
I can pretend that I have the answers to all these questions. I can tell you how every cent I earn from my campus job, cutting hair, and monthly allowance goes straight to my fund. I can show you the list of vaccinations I’ll have to take and pretend I don’t hate needles. I can say that I’ll pack gallons of bug replant even if I have to carry the extra weight, but the truth is: I don’t really know and I’m kind of afraid.
But my fear is as a twig in the midst of a tornado, a tornado that goes by the name of Exhilaration. I am going to spend 11 months backpacking across 11 countries. This is not radical living. It isn’t. This is practical living. Through knowing God’s Word and truly believing it, I have found that living for Him and throwing away my idols of comfort & distraction is the only practical decision to make. So in my inability to answer these “how’s”, allow me to express “why”.
Romans 5:8 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
– There is no form of compartmentalization where God doesn’t know certain parts of my life. He identifies how messy I am; every despicable, wretched nook and cranny of my underserving existence. He knows it all! Omniscient, yet He died for me.
1 John 3:1 “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.”
– He looked down and said “I want Jason Love Albano to be part of my family!” How audacious of me to even allow this thought to cross my mind! It is a thought that is pretentious at the least. God holds the planets in flawless orbit, and every neuron, proton, and electron in impeccable unison. He created the universe on the macro and the micro level. He is master of it all! Omnipotent, yet he wants me.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
– This was the first verse I ever memorized. I even got a kite as a prize for it. The problem is that I had been living it out wrong my whole life. I lived as if it said “For Jason Love Albano so loved God…” Blasphemy. God did not leave His heavenly throne because of our love for Him. He came because He loves us. God and His love is so vast that it spreads beyond our very understanding. He is everywhere! Omnipresent, yet he made himself known in the form of Jesus Christ, for me.
Why? –Because He first loved me.
God displayed the perfect exhibit of an overwhelmingly extravagant love. I had always heard these truths, but to truly desire to understand, believe, apply, and experience them has changed EVERYTHING. As I have experienced God’s love, I literally cannot help but share it. You see, God loves you with that love. God loves that homeless refugee in Europe. God loves that young orphan in Africa. God loves that poverty-stricken, single mother in Asia. The missing link is that they will not know this love unless they are told. So therefore, I will go, and I ask you to send me.
Thanks so much to all who have partnered with me through prayer, donation, and love. Please, please leave your email, phone number, Facebook, Instagram, or anything else that I may use get in contact with you and share the wonders God has been showing me. I would love to add more items to my prayer list, receive encouragement from you, do what I can to be an encouragement to you, and to simply share God’s love.
