So here's the facts: The World Race can be streeeeeessful! There's a honeymoon phase where you're super pumped and then there's just the reality that sometimes it's super rough and nowhere near as magical as everything you come to expect through all the blogs and videos and "About the World Race" section that you read online. I think you'd be hard pressed to do the race and always love 100% of your team, always love your ministry site, ministry contacts, country, or agenda of the month. You have a lot of personal rights you have to forfeit the second you sign up for the Race and agree to come along and that's just life. If that makes you massively uncomfortable and in your mind you say "I'll never do that" then the race might not be for you and that's perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with you, nothing wrong with the race, it's just different things fit different people better than others. That's why God made different parts of the body and yet, still the body.
One of the main things drilled into us at training camp and then at launch is to get rid of our expectations. That's a bigger deal than it sounds like and actually the second you get your team assignments, let alone actually launch, you realize how key it is if you want a stress free race. That being said, there's a big difference between expectations, dreams, and goals. The first is a good idea to get rid of. Such things as "This is my dream team", "I just know God's gonna use me in this way in this country", or "I'm gonna be a team leader!" fall under the expectation realm and will get you in trouble, trust meeeeeeee. Now lets talk about the latter two.
First off we have our dreams. I'm a huge fan of dreams, God uses them all the time in the Bible and lets face it, you can't escape the fact that God loves co creating and dreaming with us. It's from Genesis to Revelation. Dreams would be such things as "I want to minister to heads of state" or "I want to make orphans feel like sons and daughters". Hold these things with all your heart on the race cause God's always looking for those willing to dream outside their own means and then be radically used by Him. These are the things that will give your ministry a purpose and not just kinda an aimless wandering into whatever happens to happen in the day. The truth of the matter is that a lot of the best testimonies you read online from the Race aren't necessarily from peoples assigned ministries, it's from what they decide to make of their ministries and what they do with their off time. This is the real world, there's nobody here to hold your hand. You paid/had others invest a lot of money into this trip. Sometimes you're gonna be in a place where you'll have 4 days off at a time or only work 4 hours a day. Don't laze around on the internet the rest of the day, you're here to spread the Kingdom of God, find a way to do that, even if it's just building relationships with street kids or cleaning your ministry site. The things you don't think people ever notice are what make the biggest difference. I promise.
Secondly, we have our goals. This is kinda ministry aside. This is what you wanna see God do in your life personally. Jesus called His disciples and then He asked them "What did you come to see?"….what do you want? You're now on the adventure of a lifetime and headed around the world in the pursuit of spreading the gospel while at the same time on a physical journey that's bringing your spiritual journey into being. What is it that you want from God? If ever you're gonna get it or find Him, it's now when you literally have all the chance in the world to drop every distraction and piece of business to find Him. What's He got for you? If He could give you anything, sky's the limit, what would it be? You know what it is for me? I want to feel alive again as if I can taste every single breath I take and my whole being radiates His presence. I want to so relish Him and His creation that I glow like Moses. That's what I'm working towards and when I have that set before me and that's my perspective, team drama, fundraising, squatty potties, and cold showers fade away into the perepheral. When it comes to the World Race, it's so easy to get caught up in what's not happening that you don't focus on what God's actually doing and therefore, are robbed of a chance to celebrate in God's victories through your ministry.
Real talk. You're not gonna always see all this in fruition the way you want and in the timing you want. Don't give up. I think it's fair to say that when it comes time for the first deadline, a decent chunk of people leave the race and that's really sad because it could have been the fourth month that God really wanted to manifest in their lives. Sure He might have taught you all the lessons He wanted to in the first three but the fact is that you don't know what you don't know. Teams could get changed just right, you could get into just the right ministry, country, or even just have breakthrough with those around you that makes all the world of a difference and giving up based off of expectations will take all of that right out from under you. The Race is no joke. It's not always easy, it's not always fun. It's sometimes exhaustive. It's definitly dirty and messy. Proverbs says that without oxen the stall is clean, but much labor is brought about through the strength of an ox. Peter, James, and John were Jesus' 3 closest disciples and yet they were the ones He disciplined the most and yet it happened because He loved them and they went from disciples to apostles because of it.
If you're even considering the race, I urge you to check your motives and the position of your heart, but then once you're set on it, stick with it. Once you launch and you're stuck in a town of 700 people with ministry contacts that don't speak english and you're seeing all your squadmates preaching and working with children while you dig trenches and then fill them right back in for a whole month, check your heart. It's so easy to become bitter and think this is all a waste and ask what you're even doing here. Don't you dare let your expecations ruin the full potential that you have in a time like this. The World Race is what you make it and you never know who's watching you. Last week we literally had one job, clean the toilets at a camp twice a day…. it seemed like nothing and yet the amount of respect and appreciation we got from the hundreds of Bulgarians that watched us doing it without complaint was enormous.
You don't know what you don't know. You were made for such a time as this and through every step of this entire process, He's bringing you closer and closer to Him if you let Him and trust me, He wants you to step into your destiny even more than you do, He's even more proud of you than you are. He has even more faith in that wonderful heart He gave you than you do. You've got this. The world's waiting for you. Go get it.
