High Contrast + Smiling Foreign Children + Exotic Animals = The World Race
This makes up the simple equation that Racers like myself use to become ” World Race Famous ” and obtain the most attention from the marketing team, all of our potential Instagram followers, and the oh so famous World Race Alumni. The coolest part about it — It works.
This week, my beautiful and hilarious teammate Chelsey Murphree Instagramed a photo she took in Kindergarten. She upped the contrast and saturation filter, included a few adorable children and their huge smiles, and “hash-tagged” The World Race. She was retweeted by The World Race, replied to by a future racer, and RT by a World Race Alum. Pretty soon she will be reppin’ famous status and sharing little glimpses of the beauty we see here every day in Malaysia, and making everybody back home jealous for our “perfect” lives in foreign places.
After witnessing the excitement and thrill of seeing social media project our experience out to the masses, it started to really hit me — I am on the other side of the photo now!
I am being blog stalked, followed on Instagram, ReTweeted and it is such a strange thing to realize.
I can remember 6 months ago spending hours drooling over glorious images of tigers, asia pants, street food, elephants, and vivid marketplaces. I could see the sparkly joy in orphan’s smiles, as a World Racer was spinning them around in the air. I reveled in the idea that one day I too would look happy, colorful, cultural, and fulfilled.
That is my life now, and my Facebook Cover Photo is real cute. I am hugging on two girls from The Philippines – and we look really happy. My skin is glowing, and their eyes are shining bright with the joy of the beautiful day we spent swimming at our ministry site.
There’s a catch: Those gloriously edited photographs are sweet, precious moments that I will hold captive in my heart for the rest of my life and never let go of, but there are still many other experiences that are happening behind the lense that none of you get to see; and I am not really sure you would really want to.
Social media is great because it lets us show you the best parts of our lives and gives you a little glimpse of what building God’s Kingdom can look like. Yet an unreasonable expectation for what life is really like for a World Racer can also be established through these little happy snapshots as well.
Expectation – Things we want you to see:
Hugging Orphans all the time
Beautiful and Exotic Weather
Carefree and Stress-free Attitudes
Loving and Happy Teammates
Yummy Food
I think when I was preparing for the World Race, I saw it as the answer to all of the restlessness and lack of fulfillment I was feeling in my American life.
The idea of hugging kids in needs, traveling the world without a schedule like my strict 12-9, eating exotic foods, and having the freedom to wear what I want, and distract myself with a lifestyle of new things seemed so appealing to me. It was so wildly different than anything I was experiencing in the United States, that I felt like it would be the magical life I’d been longing for since I was a child.
Watching highlight reels of the best moments people experience on their Race, coupled with the colorful photos all over Social Media turned The World Race into another goal for me to achieve. When I got here, I was expecting everyday to be a highlight reel. I was anticipating each and every moment to be packed full of monkeys, petting tigers, high fiving children, and laughter.
I did not expect to feel things like I did in America.
It is unrealistic, but somehow I’d set myself up to believe that if I felt sad, lonely, annoyed, angry, or mad that I was failing my supporters somehow. In some respects, I felt that I was not living The World Race experience like I was supposed to — I was doing it wrong — because it didn’t look like those beautiful high contrast photos each and every moment of every day.
I didn’t realize this was an expectation until I started running through the moments of my day before drifting off to sleep and realizing that most of my experiences had happened internally that day.
The World Race is portrayed as this magically whimsical exotic adventure — don’t get me wrong, it is all of those things– but most days it is a journey of the heart.
So how do we share this journey? How do we, as Racers, take you through the winding roads and off beaten paths that have been carved through the jungles of our hearts? How do we lead you through the back alleys and bridges? How do we share with you the rivers of life that are flowing through our veins, and the dams we have broken down to get them flowing again?
Our words.
Words Create Worlds.
If you are reading this and you have a whimsical image of what life would be like in my shoes an how much better it must be than your 9-5 back home — please take time to pick that apart that picture and dissect it. Understand that your life is equally fulfilling and exotic, and the answers I thought I would find on The World Race are not coming from the jungle adventures, jeepney rides, and street food.
The fulfillment I am finding internally, is from the time I have invested in figuring it all out.
I could have taken this time back home to dive into my heart and learn who I am.
I could have started reading the Gospels, Redeeming Love, Forgotten God, Sacred Romance, etc. back home.
It is the simple, seemingly insignificant moments that aren’t worth “Instagramming ” that have radically changed my life so far.
In my mind the equation for my life was just as simple as my recipe for Social Media Success.
The World Race = Finding God = Happiness
I am in Malaysia, just spent a month in the Philippines and will be heading to Vietnam in exactly 6 days. My life is not perfect and yes, things are exotic and so interesting in all of these places. However, do know that America is real great too and you can begin your spiritual journey in that country just like I am here overseas. The World Race won’t fix you, no matter how beautiful it seems from afar.
I am so thankful for the time that I have spent on The World Race so far. My heart and mind are being transformed more each day. Though I haven’t been able to keep you all in the loop as well as I would have liked the last two months, do know that the work we are doing has been so fruitful. I will look back on this season of my life with gratitude and appreciation. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR HELPING ME GET HERE. 🙂
If you are interested in partnering with me financially, my next deadline ($11k) is November 15th ( MY 24th Birthday! 🙂 ) and I only have $1600 left to meet it!
One time donations can be made by clicking HERE
