I have a challenge to future world racer girls, and some girls at home if they want to try this as well!
I want to challenge girls coming on the race to abandon their makeup and bring minimal clothes. Here’s why:
This adventure is all about abandoning your comforts from home, it’s about creating a stronger relationship with the Lord, sharing the gospel, showing love, and serving others. You learn so much more about yourself on this trip than you every thought you would.
With that being said, for many girls, makeup and clothes are a huge comfort and “necessity” for them. But, in Psalm 139:14 it says “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, wonderful are your works, for my soul knows it well” God made all of us just as he wanted us. We are his beautiful artwork and he loves us with or without our makeup and with or without our fancy clothes.
Most girls start wearing makeup around that middle school age, so that means most girls my age (22) have been wearing makeup for a good 10 years. Most girls won’t even walk out of the house if they don’t put their makeup on, or “put their face on.” A big thing that World Races pushes us to do is abandon our false self. According to Donald Winnicott, a 20th century pediatrician and psychoanalyst, refers to false self as certain types of false personalities that develop as the result of early and repeated environmental failure, with the result that the true self-potential is not realized, but hidden. In other my words, false self is the person we show the world, the person we go to because we don’t think people will like who we really are, it’s the person we believe to be much better than who God made us to be. In all of that we actually lose who we are, many people in their young adult years have no clue who they truly are because they have kept it hidden for so long. On this trip, you really start to pin point your true identity. When you realize your true self you start letting your natural self show, including your natural face and your natural beauty. Allow yourself to go for 11 months without wearing makeup. Allow yourself to experience who God made you to be without all the extra updos and cover ups. You start to realize that people will support you, encourage you, believe in you, and love you, because of your personality and your God fearing spirit.
When it comes to clothes, let me share some advice I have come up with from the past two months: I actually packed very lightly compared to the other girls on my squad. In some ways, I wish I would have brought more clothes, but in many ways I am very thankful that I didn’t. I have noticed that most of my teammates will put a lot of thought into what they are wearing or change about 3 times before they go back to the original outfit they had on. When you bring more options you think more about what you have on or you think about what other people will think about what you have on, when really, the people you are serving don’t care what you are wearing, they are just thankful for your help, for your kind heart, and your faithfulness to God. When you aren’t worried about what your wearing and what you look like you can focus on the people God has placed in front of you. You think about other people, rather than yourself. Also, Jesus walked around in a robe and some sandals, so He certainly doesn’t care what you wear everyday. Oh, and one more thing, you sign a covenant, asking that you do not date another squad mate, team mate, or local of the place you are visiting, or if you are in a current relationship, they are not on the race to see you everyday, so at the end of they day, you have no one to impress, which means you have no reason to worry so much about your clothes.
This is somewhat of an easier challenge for me because I have always been a pretty minimalist person and I don’t wear much make up, but for some girls, it’s not that simple. This has still been hard for me, because when I look around at some of my squad mates who are so interested in what they are wearing, it makes me second guess what I am wearing, or when I watch them put on their make up, it makes me wonder if I need to put some on as well. When it really comes down to it, God made us all beautiful and wonderful, just as we are.
