I started fundraising for the World Race in March 2018. Seven months later in September I was fully funded with $18,200! If you donated money to me during this time I am SO THANKFUL. Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was so much preparation and thought that went into going on this trip. Now, ITS OVER! I’ve been home in the USA for almost three months. Before I discuss what I learned and if going on the World Race was even worth it, I thought I’d give you a small glimpse of what we went through this year. Looking back on how much we traveled has got me shook! I traveled to four different continents and had the privilege of going to NINETEEN different countries: Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Turkey, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Dubai. (four countries we went to were only because we had long layovers)
Having finished the Race, I can say that I can sleep like a baby almost anywhere now! For the first three months I slept on my blow up sleeping pad and over the span of the remaining eight months I slept in thirty nine different beds. That’s not including the nights we spent sleeping on the floor in airports and sleeping on busses and airplanes overnight! Several of my squad mates were hospitalized throughout the trip for many different reasons. I thankfully, never had to go to the hospital, but I did have a good case of lice for three months, ringworm for two months, four parasites, an ear infection, and a kidney infection.
We left the USA flying west and came back from the east. We literally made a trip around the world in 11 months! Now that this crazy adventure is over, what did I learn? What made the biggest change/impact on my life? WAS IT WORTH IT?
I learned that there are so many good hearted, selfless individuals in this world. This trip helped me see the good in people and also in myself. Not the beautiful places I visited, the things I did, or the things I saw impacted me the way the people I met did. I met people who had NOTHING. Not a house to live in, clean water to drink, or any money. These people changed my perspective the most because they were HAPPY. It blows my mind to think of how much we have in America. We have anything and everything we could ever need here. The fact that I can get in my car and drive to Walmart still sometimes makes me tear up when I think about it because I now know how big of a blessing and a privilege it is to have a place like that to buy anything I need. But the fact that people can still be so happy and have nothing proves that happiness doesn’t come from material things.
The World Race was SO SO SO WORTH IT! It has been one of the best and hardest experiences of my life! Would I do it again? Absolutely not! I honestly don’t think I could make it through a second time!
When I signed up for the World Race I was told that there would be three stages of this trip:
1. Surrender
2. Brokenness
3. Dependency
I never knew exactly what that even meant until I got home and processed what had happened throughout the year!
Surrender, to me, looked like quitting my job, selling my car, selling half of my belongings, saying goodbye to my friends, family, and comfort to allow an organization to run my life for a year. I even had to sign a contract saying that I wouldn’t date or be in a relationship during the entirety of the trip! If that isn’t “surrender” I don’t know what is!
I heard the word brokenness and was so not excited to experience whatever that meant! To me, brokenness was realizing that a lot of things that happened in my past and even in my early childhood have negativity affected my present relationships and my daily thought patterns. I learned that I couldn’t work through this alone. I had to rely on my teammates and ultimately the Holy Spirit to help me walk through my brokenness.
Dependency, to me, allowed me to know what it is like to FULLY depend on God. During the last three months of the Race we lived in Africa. Living in Africa was amazing, but I have never been so homesick, physically/emotionally drained, and smelly in my entire life! Entering into month 11, I reached a new level of exhaustion I have never felt before. This may sound extreme, but I sometimes cried as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning because I was so incredibly exhausted from the constant travel, having 0 privacy, living out of a backpack, and constantly being uncomfortable. Month 11 is no joke! Looking back on this, I am so thankful for the opportunity to be so drained and uncomfortable because I was able to rely on Gods strength to carry me through and not my own. He was with me through every season of the World Race and I know He will be with me through every season to come.
What I am MOST thankful for is that I have a much stronger relationship with God and a greater understanding of who He really is because of the World Race!
But this isn’t the end of the road for me! I’m going to a leadership school in Gainesville, Georgia in January 2020. The school is called CGA and is associated with the same organization as the World Race!
