Last month, as five World Race squads were meeting in Atlanta and preparing to launch on our various routes, each racer was given a journal to help us process and chronicle our adventure this year. There are different prompts and questions to explore how God is teaching and transforming us each month, and one of the prompts was to write a letter to future racers about the lessons we’ve learned so far. Here’s my letter:
Dear future racer,
If my first six weeks on the Rae have taught me anything, it’s to expect the unexpected and be ready for whatever comes your way. Heading into month one in Ecuador, all my team knew was that we’d be working with a ministry that served teenagers and women at risk from prostitution, sex abuse, and violence. It seemed clear that our month would be focused on women’s ministry, which I was really excited about.
We did do a bit of women’s ministry, but the majority of our work turned out to be manual labor. No one saw that coming, and it was awesome. I could have been disappointed about unexpectedly spending my days painting walls and pulling weeds, but it was such a sweet time of getting to know my teammates, enjoying each other’s company, and speaking into one another’s lives.
Ministry may not (and by that I mean almost certainly won’t) look like you think, but God is ready to blow your expectations out of the water.
This applies outside of your formal ministry, too. You’ll have very little control over your day-to-day schedule, which can be frustrating at times, but your Abba Father is ready and waiting to surprise and delight you beyond what you can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).
In six short weeks, I have (among other things):
- Climbed a 15,000-foot volcano
- Remodeled a kitchen
- Tried surfing
- Eaten a giant plate of raw fish
- Been hospitalized (thanks, raw fish!)
- Gotten soaked by a waterfall
- On-the-spot interpreted sermons into English and Spanish
- Had my feet washed and pedicured by the men of our squad
- Learned to weld and built scaffolding
- Led worship with 30 seconds of advance notice
Even the hospital stay turned out to be awesome, by God’s grace.
I can’t say I’ve enjoyed every moment of the World Race (having your intestines ravaged by infection is no one’s idea of a good time), but I can say this: I’ve gone from having no idea what to expect, to expecting to see God’s goodness every day and be blown away by something amazing way more frequently than seems possible. I just have to keep my eyes open to see it.
