Friends and Family,
If you know me well, it may be shocking to hear that I’ve decided to pick up my life and travel around the world for 11 months on this thing called the “World Race.” In the past few years, I’ve developed a track record of getting a really exciting idea and then changing my mind. In making the decision to embark on this journey, I have wondered if this was another one of those ideas. But as I pray, I believe that Lord is asking me to trust Him, and leap. So I am.
On this journey, I will be abandoning the traditional way of doing life, living out of a backpack, and traveling with a team to 11 countries in 11 months, serving the broken and needy around the world. In January 2013 I will travel to Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Romania, Ukraine, Mozambique, Swaziland, South Africa, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia.
So why am I going on this trip? Well, this is a question I’ve thought about a great deal. Over the past two years, my life has shifted dramatically. I thought I was going to continue serving as a mental health therapist working with victims of trauma and I thought I was going to get married. I thought I was going to live in the townhouse I purchased and pay off debt; I thought this was what I wanted. Now, I live in Atlanta with two roommates, rent my townhouse to friends, work as a Nanny, and spend most of my free time rock climbing. This dramatic shift in circumstanceshas lead
me to look back over the past few years and ask myself,
One event that I am certain played an immense role in altering my perspective began in August of 2011. I started working at Wellspring Living, which is a recovery home for women coming out of sexual exploitation and abuse. As I worked with these women, I was faced with a level of evil I had never before encountered. I began to truly question God’s goodness, and ultimately began to doubt his existence. I questioned if women as broken as the ones I encountered could truly experience restoration. How God could possibly be a loving God if he was in heaven watching all of the gruesome evil that plagued these women? Even now as I write this, I am reminded of the doubt and fear that plagued my heart during this time. If God wasn’t real, good, faithful, or loving, then my entire reality no longer made sense.
For a while, I pressed into these emotions, fought with God, asked tough questions, and sought counsel from mentors. Eventually, I landed on the three ideas:
- God is bigger than me
- I do not understand His ways
- He is working together a greater good than what I think is important.
I thought this idea was enough to keep me walking in faith, but the truth is, I just kept drifting from my faith- living in the grey areas of life. I sought joy and life anywhere I could extract it. The reality was that in my own confusion and wounded heart, I was moving farther and farther away from my true source of peace and joy.
Once I drifted away from joy about as far as I could stand it, I decided to seek some help. I scheduled a few days away to spend in solitude, in hopes to find some peace, and hopefully get some sort of direction from the Lord. Thanks to some great friends, I was able to spend a day on Lake Lanier adventuring around on a Kayak (adventure and bodies of water are two favorites of mine). The idea of the World Race had secretly been popping up in my mind every so often for several months, but it was during these few days of solitude that I actually asked God if this was something he wanted for me. Having been around many World Racers over the years, I already had a good sense of what the trip was about, and once I started praying, I almost immediately felt the Lord leading me to go.
It took less than a week
for me to decide to apply. After I was accepted to go on the World Race, I continued job hunting, pursuing a new career direction I thought I could succeed in and enjoy. I continued to put off committing going on the trip, hoping I could get a job, and move towards feeling financially stable and like a responsible adult. I had several potential job opportunities in front of me and I realized my version of the perfect life is not at all what God had in mind. He said he wanted me to have life to full.
My almost constant anxiety is a reminder of how frequently I rely on my own abilities, and leave little room for God to take care of me. The truth is, that is the reason I am committed to this journey. More than anything, I want to have the kind of faith in God that is not anxious–the kind of faith that allows me to trust God even when I do not understand.
Ultimately, I am embarking on this journey to bring Glory to His name and serve the “least of these” around the world. The fruits I pray are formed along the way are an identity completely shaped in Christ, knowing myself as his beloved, freedom from conformity, renewed joy, and unshakable faith.
Thank you for taking the time to read a bit about my journey, I look forward to sharing more of it with you.
Love,
Jesse
