It’s true that I want to go. God didn’t have to work too hard to get me to say yes when he called me to this. I’m more excited about this than I’ve been about anything in my whole life, and that’s saying something because I’m a really excitable person.
But that’s not why I’m going. The World Race is not a vacation. (Seriously, why would I plan a vacation that would cause me to not be able to work at camp? Then again, most people didn’t get that camp was a ministry; they all thought it was a fun summer job I’d eventually outgrow. So that argument doesn’t really work)
For every reason I can list that I want to go, I can think of a reason why I don’t want to.
I want to travel. I don’t want to leave my friends for a year.
I want to never have to be alone for eleven months. I love my job here and don’t want to quit.
I want the challenge of shrinking my life down to a backpack. I want hot showers and real toilets.
I want to play with street kids who have never seen an iPad and are totally content having no other toys besides a soccer ball. I don’t want to miss seeing MY girls, my campers who I’ve watched grow up and are about to be junior staffers, or my little girls who used to be homesick second graders and now are about to start high school.
If this was all about me, I probably wouldn’t be doing this. Actually, I definitely wouldn’t be doing this, because I’d never imagine it was possible to raise $16,000 for something I was doing just for myself.
I’m going because I have to.
WHY do you have to?
Because God asked me to, and he only ever asks me to do what’s best for me.
I went to college because he said so, and as much as I hated it and thank him every day that it was over, I can also see what wonders it did for me. So now I’m going to follow him around the world and see what happens.
Because I’m annoyed with my own ignorance.
I’m chasing my dinner with half a box of Oreos while there are kids who’ve had nothing to eat all day but a handful of rice. I need to do something about that, instead of just laughing to myself and praying, “God, this is really sad. Please give the poor Africans an extra blessing today.”
Because I have too much hope to not share it with people who have never had any.
Jesus changed my life from a billion broken pieces to a beautiful work of art, and he wants to do that with everyone’s. But a lot of people don’t know that or believe that. I have to tell them.
