When I tell people of how little I get to take with me on the race, they are appalled. When I say that I’ll be bringing some shorts, a skirt, a few t-shirts and a nicer blouse…and that’s it, I can see the whites of a person’s eyes as they widen in astonishment.
The life of a racer doesn’t make sense to most people. You fundraise somewhere between $13,000-$16,000 and you live out of a bag for, in the case of a gap year, nine months, and for the full World Race, eleven months.
In actuality, though, it’s exactly what Jesus has called us to do. Adventures in Missions (AIM) has done this sort of Kingdom journey for years now, sending thousands of missionaries onto the field with a bag and a Bible, and it has done wonders for not only the people the racer comes into contact with, but for the racer themselves. However, as crazy as it sounds and as inventive as Seth Barnes, the founder of AIM is, he did not come up with this radical way of sharing the gospel.
Jesus did.
“Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece.”
{Luke 9:3}
I’m going into this with $14,000 raised in advance. I get to bring 2 packs (one 60L, one 20L), several outfits, chacos, and all sorts of “essentials” with me on this race. The disciples? They had the Spirit.
AND IT WAS ENOUGH… In fact, it was MORE than enough.
At training camp, our meals were quite different than the regular ones I’m accustomed to. You see, everyday there’d be a different culture, and we’d have to abide by the cultural norms for the meal times. This often required the use of our hands, and on Africa day, it even required the women to sit on the floor to eat and serve the men.
Not that I was expecting a five course meal walking into camp, but I definitely wasn’t expecting what was given to us. We were served a regular sized serving plate, usually pretty full of our food, and were expected to split whatever was on that plate between the eight people at our table.
If you’ve ever been to Texas, you know that even our breakfast tacos can be the size of your head. Camp was very different. My Texas sized stomach shrank to the size of a Georgia peach VERY quickly.
I only got to shower at camp four times over the course of ten days. A little nasty, yes. Especially considering the fact that those “showers” looked a lot like filling a bucket with water and having a cup to wash your hair. Headbands, deodorant, febreeze spray, and baby-wipe-baths became my best friends at camp when the line for the shower was too long and I had just gotten done being drenched in sweat from the worship session…because you ALWAYS left drenched.
I slept in a tent at camp. In that tent, I had a blowup sleeping pad, blowup pillow, and a sleeping bag, and if I’m being honest, I was too lazy to blow up my pillow almost every night, so my jacket became my pillow… #NoRagrets. It wasn’t what I was used to by any means. The first few nights of camp were killers because as tired as I was from the day before, I couldn’t fall asleep on my 3 inch thick sleeping pad. I got used to it more and more as the time went on, though, and I figured out that sleeping in an Eno is way more comfortable anyways.
In all of these things, I realized how indulgent my life outside of camp is. Yes, I love my head-sized tacos from Los Gallos, and I love my shower that pours out hot water whenever I turn the nozzle, and I love my bed and fluffy pillow that I don’t have to blow up every night…but…
I learned to love the community that was shared whilst dividing up meals. I learned to love the conversations struck when waiting in line for the bucket showers and the cleanish feeling I would get after them before sweating…again. And I absolutely loved having everyone come into my tent at night, sit on my already too small bed and tell me about their walk with Jesus and what He was doing in their hearts.
Most of all, I learned that while I wasn’t used to how little I was living off of, it was enough.
The disciples were told to take nothing on their Kingdom journey. From the very beginning of their walks with Jesus, they were told to drop what they were doing and follow Him, and that’s exactly what they did. They left their livelihoods, the things that gave them their identities, their families, all for the sake of knowing Jesus and making His name known.
When they were sent to evangelize and told not to bring anything, they just went, no questions asked. The Spirit was with them and they KNEW IT. The material things could be left behind if the Kingdom was calling…and it was.
In fact, it still is.
I get to bring a 60L pack with me on the race. I get to bring some comforts from home with me while I spread the Good News, which totally rocks and I’m grateful for clean clothes.
Ultimately, though, the Spirit is enough. The Spirit is MORE than enough, and the more I realize that, the more my pack seems to get smaller and smaller, when I take a step back and see that the only thing I need to take with me is Jesus…and He’s already there.
