The Great World Race Exodus of 2010

For the our first week here in Byron Bay, Australia, we have been
staying at Belongil Fields, a very basic campground about a 40 minute
walk outside of town. By “we” I mean my team, a fellow “M” squad team
and three teams from our sister “N” squad. About 30 of us all in
all. We are all on the World Race, just separate as far as leadership
in the field and sometimes race route and specific locations. We have
been tenting in the same place but have not really worked or acted as a
family of world racers, for the most part sticking around “own kind”.
This would all change in one night of unified worship, turned chaos,
turned mass exodus.

On Saturday night we got back to camp just
as a steady rain began to fall. Gathering in a small, covered table
area the steady rain turned to a torrential downpour. We had planned to
worship together for the first time that night and with many of us
already soaked, several went out to worship and dance in the rain and
the Holy Spirit began to work in a mighty way as we worshiped.
Prophesying over and encouraging one another as the rain fell around
us, the two squads became one body of believers who love God and desire
to see Him move through us in Byron Bay. After a few hours, we were
winding down just as the pastor of a local church we had been working
with showed up, letting us know that the rain was forecast to continue
through the next day and that flooding was likely. He proceeded to
invite all thirty of us to stay the night at the church and offered to
transport us all there as well.

As you can imagine, it isn’t
easy to uproot 30 people and move them and their belongings quickly,
but this is, after all, the World Race. This is what we do. Soon we
were grabbing all of our sleeping bags, electronics, books, bibles and
journals out of our already flooding tents and piling in to one of the
two cars that were taking trips back and forth from the camp to the
church. Settling in for the night, the joining that began in worship
continued in fellowship. After the drama and excitement of our mass
exodus, most of us weren’t ready to call it a night just yet. We
talked, played games and hung out together for a few hours more after
that… though it was mostly a group of girls playing charades
“quietly” that was the real culprit keeping us up for so long. Not that
we minded much.