Howdy howdy,
My name is Josef Kainrad and I am going on the World Race, route 3, leaving in September 2014.
Most of you who will be reading this know me already, but a few of you don’t. The story about how I got involved in the World Race is a pretty crazy one. It all started last spring…
I was bicycling across America to raise awareness of human trafficking, apart of the Bike to Be Free tour and due to poor weather conditions I had to stay in Springfield, Missouri for a few extra days. The weather was terribly rainy, and cold, and at that point I had been riding for three weeks and it was the first time I had seen one of my friends, Seth, since I had left for tour and wanted to stay a few extra days. So while I was there in Springfield, I wanted to go to to his church with him but Seth didn’t have time to come home from work to get me, so he sent Terin James to come pick me up.
The introduction when she walked in could have been better. I meant to say something along the lines of, hey did Seth tell you anything about my trip or who I am relating to the trip and why I am in Springfield? But what I actually said was more on the lines of, “Do you know WHO I am?”
Oh jeez, but that story can be found here.
Terin was about to leave for the World Race and captivated me with her enthusiasm for it and her drive for missions. Something I am really passionate about. Seeing the world, traveling, talking to people, learning their stories, helping in what ways I can. I’m all about that life.
That’s when I was first introduced to TWR. About a month later I was riding through Albuquerque and stopped at the Mac store there to visit my friend Justin. While I am at this mac store I see a really niced fixed gear bicycle outside, turns out I meet the guy who owns the bike, his name is Tyler Hamilton and he just returned from the World Race and is about to be married and goes to the same church as a lot of my friends in ABQ do, Mars Hill! Such a crazy small world.
I later continued to finish the trip over the next few weeks and came back to the promised land, Texas. While I was in the land of milk and honey I was deciding what next to do with my life and the thought of the World Race lingered in my mind but I dismissed it when the opportunity to join a band in Arkansas came up. I met this band while I was in Springfield on the bike tour and moved out to join them and started touring with them.
I’ll spare the details as I tend to ramble on, but things didn’t work out for me and that band after a few months. I was debating what to do with the next steps of my life before I quit. We were traveling out to Nashville to play at the favorite RocketTown out there whenever I first felt the Lord tug on my heart strings and encourage me to pursue the World Race.
“Come! Come on. This is what I have for you.”
The next day in Nashville, my friend Brian (who I had stayed with and met on the bike tour), called me to come over his house. I go over his house, by the venue we were playing at, and when I get there he is reading a letter. A letter someone from the World Race had sent him. Hint hint.
The next day Alyssa and I quit the band we were in, and I moved my gear to her house in Tulsa, OK. The following weekend I drove home to Denton, TX and was talking to one of our church leaders, Jeremy Spray, about the World Race when Jeremy interrupted me.
“You know I used to work for TWR as a translator.”
This was before I told him about the Tulsa part.
“In fact, I know someone in Tulsa named Paul you could go meet with, he used to work for TWR.”
hint hint.
The next week I had lunch with a few different pastors at the Village Church to talk it over and I had lunch with a pastoral intern. We went to this super cheap chinese food place, not sure what the name is now but it literally used to be “FAST CHINESE FOOD 2.99 TO GO YOU COME BUY NOW” or something ridiculous like that. Maybe not that verbatim, but it was something extremely similar to a unintentional comical point.
While we were there we opened some fortune cookies. I had three, don’t judge me. They read “be an example and inspire others,” “every big journey begins with the first step,” and I don’t remember what the third one said but something essentially like “josef you need to go on the world race.” I laughed at it but Jordan encouraged me and told me that the Lord uses crazy things like this to let us know. Later that day I was reading Acts and it talked about how whenever the Apostles were looking for the 12th apostle again they just drew straws for it. Or cast dice, or whatever you want to say. The message behind it was that they didn’t over complicate it and looking for signs and miracles they just made a decision and hoped the Spirit would be moving behind it.
Then I made a decision.
Here I am on this crazy journey.
So, hold on to your seats ya’ll because its going to be a crazy ride.
