Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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It has been almost three weeks since I have arrived back in the States and I have had a fun time spending time with my Dad and Mom.  As I have had some time to process the past year, I wanted to share with you my top 25 moments of the Race.  This is by no means an extensive list and they are in no particular order.  I hope you enjoy reading through these as they were moments, times, and events that have been a blessing to me and that I will never forget.  Enjoy! 


25:  Ecuador (Month 1) – Preaching and translating in small churches all around the province.  At the time it was overwhelming and hard, but it was an amazing experience and a blessing to share God’s word with those people in their native tongue.



Cory preaching and me translating

 

24: Bolivia (Month 3) – Taking walks with Fabby (10 y.o) and Jessica (8 y.o.) to the local store for water and treats after study time.  It was nice to have that time to talk and connect with them in a way that was more personal than having all 30 some kids together.

 


Fabby

 

23: Swaziland (Month 8) – Swinging and hanging out with the El Shaddai kids after studying.  Always a blast!



With the kids

 

22:  Peru (Month 2) – Driving a mototaxi.  On our last night, Henri, told me that I could drive his mototaxi back from small group.  Well, I stalled many times and realized as were approaching our destination that I didn’t know where the brakes were.  After a scary moment we arrived safely.

 


Survivors of my mototaxi driving

 

21: South Africa (Month 6) – Taking communion and having prayer on New Year’s Eve night.  We all sat around a campfire and took communion as Louis, our contact, led us in prayer as we ushered in the new year.



Our fire

 

20: Bolivia (Month 3) – Little Jessica asking if I was going to tell other children around the world about Jesus.  Each night I would read the kids a bedtime Bible story and on our last night, Jessica (8 y.o.), asked me as I was exiting the room if when I left I was going to “tell other kids around the world about Him (Jesus)â€�.

 


Reading the Bible bedtime story

 

19: Swaziland (Month 8) – Collecting firewood with the kids of El Shaddai.  Each Sunday some of us would go onto the hillside with the kids and help them get the firewood they needed to bring to school.  They would use the wood to help cook lunch each week.



Jaden and Ayanda with their piles of wood

 

18: Ecuador (Month 1) – Colombia.  My team went on a surprise visit to Colombia because our pastor and other guys of the church took us over to eat lunch and show us the country.

 


Francisco, Pastor Sixto, and Orlin (Left to Right) at our lunch in Colombia

 

17: Mozambique (Month 7) – Closing an Outreach in prayer.  On our first night at an Outreach in a small village outside of the capital of Maputo, I was asked to close in prayer.  Everyone in attendance made a huge circle and held hands as I had the blessing of praying over the people and the village.



The Outreach site

 

16: Cambodia (Month 10) – Playing with the village kids outside of our church.  We lived in the church and the kids would gather at our gate and windows waiting for us to go outside and play with them.  This was a daily occurrence and we had a blast hanging out and playing random games.

 


Our village kids

 

15: Cambodia (Month 10) – Swimming in the Mekong River.  It was SO hot in Cambodia that we spent almost every afternoon swimming in the muddy Mekong River with the cows.



Yup.  We tried to stay upstream

 

14: Romania (Month 5) – Thanksgiving dinner.  In Romania we were blessed with our nicest accommodations on the Race and we also had three teams together for the month.  This allowed us to have an awesome Thanksgiving and spend time with our new World Race family while giving thanks to God for all He had be doing.

 


Our World Race family

 

13: Thailand (Month 9) – Bamboo rafting through the jungle.  Us guys had the opportunity to take bamboo rafts down a river.  We messed around, saw elephants, and had splashing contests with the locals that lined the river because of the holidays.



That’s me on the raft to the right

 

12:  Malaysia (Month 11) – Riding motos on Pangkor Island.  Many of us rented motos during final debrief and we enjoyed the freedom of “hitting the roadâ€� and seeing the sights of the island.

 


Amanda, Me and Emily B.  That’s about as “thug” as we can get

 

11:  Thailand (Month 9) – All of us men worshiping at a church in Burma.  For MANistry month us guys had the opportunity to go into Burma and spend time in prayer for the people there.  We worshiped, spoke life, and prayed for many hours.  The Spirit was alive in that church!!



The church

 

10: Mozambique (Month 7) – Praying for people at a small market.  We were on our way back from visiting a small village when we stopped to meet an old friend of Felito’s (our contact).  We met him and prayed for him as we were leaving.  Others in the market saw this and we ended up praying for people for almost two hours!!  One man that we prayed for even donated land to us for a church and there is now a flourishing group of believers there today.  Awesome!!

 


Praying for the man who gave us the land

 

9: Ecuador (Month 1) – The gondola and mountain in Quito.  On one of our first adventure days many of us rode a gondola to the top of a mountain overlooking the city of Quito.  Beautiful!



Cory, Me, Sean, Steven and Glenn at the top

 

8: Albania (Month 4) – The cliff.  While walking with some of our new friends we came across a rock that stood about 20ft above the Adriatic Sea.  Well, we took advantage of this find and enjoyed jumping off of it on several occasions.

 


Me jumping off

 

7: Romania (Month5) – DDU!  The DDU stands for Ditch Diggers United.  This was the name that Nick, Amanda, Jess, and I gave ourselves as we wore our vests and dug trenches every day for ministry.



Amanda, Me, Jess, and Nick

 

6: Albania (Month 4) – Italy. Our two teams went on a weekend trip to Italy for our days-off.

 


At a castle in Bari, Italy

 

5: Ecuador (Month1) – Creeper car.  I will never live this one down, but in order to tell kids about our VBS that week, I rode around town with our pastor as he had me say things through the loud speaker (he hooked one to the roof of his car) while it blasted kids music in between and we would stop, call random kids over to the car, and invite them to VBS.  Creepy, yes.  It did the job though as we had many kids attend VBS.  In my defense I thought he was simply taking me to get a haircut when he surprised me with our task for the morning.



Some of the kids that showed up to our VBS 

 

4: Cambodia (Month 10) – Walking the village streets in Cambodia.  The people were so friendly and often we would have a group of kids following us wherever we went.  Everyone would wave to us and say “Hello!â€� until we were out of sight.

 


Walking down the street

   

3:  Thailand (Month 9) – Seeing a homeless family give money to a blind man.  At the night market in Chiang Mai I saw a woman and her two kids give money out of their begging cup to a blind man who was also walking down the street begging.  All I could do was watch in amazement at their humble and gracious hearts.



The woman and her two kids

 

2:  South Africa (Month 6) – Seeing a Lion on our Safari.  It took us almost five hours but we eventually saw our lion!

 


One of two lions we saw in the bush

 

1:  Bolivia (Month 3) – Driving the mini-bus.  I did not know how to drive a stick-shift so my teammate Lindsay taught Cory and I how to so that we could drive the kids around on the mini-bus.  So, on the very night that I learned to drive a stick, I drove a bus load of our kids to church.  It was terrifying and awesome all at the same time.  We were pro’s by the end of the month.



Me driving the bus

 

Bonus moments:



  • Teaching English in Cambodia


  • Team fun (games, adventure, ect)  Encompassing all of the good times I had with my squadmates


  • “Besitosâ€� in Bolivia (Bedtime kisses for the kids)


  • Squad Worship nights


  • Witnessing the darkness of the Red-light district in Chiang Mai


  • Day at Angkor Wat with Jamos, Emily, and Amanda


  • Waterfalls, trees, caves and more! = MANistry 2012

 


Believe me.  There are many more moments than the ones I have listed.  I hope you enjoyed them and thanks again for making this all possible!