Many blogs are written with the intent of giving sound and reasonable advice to future members of the World Race. And while I like to fashion my blogs to that ilk once in a blue moon, this blog needs to reach not just future Racers, but those who are currently in the field. This goes for members of July/September routes, my squad, my team, and myself.
The World Race and your present/future ministry contacts are not your bosses/parents/babysitters. These are 11 months when you will have to think for yourself, and take action out of your own desire for service.
In my first 6 months on the Race, I’ve had ministry contacts that more often than not will have very little structure to each day, and a lot of work that can get done will go unrequested.
This isn’t your opportunity to slack off. It’s not your chance to go watch movies. And it isn’t a time to take a nap, because you think you’ve earned it.
These are the times that your true spirit shines out the most. And it can be one of the greatest character-building moments that will lead to a better work ethic both in your personal and professional life down the road.
For my past and present teams, we’ve had some months that have been full of fulfilling work, but other months that have been lacking in daily structure.
In Bulgaria, we would work a few hours each day and our ministry contact continually asked us to “rest” for the remainder of the day; though often there was hardly anything to rest from.
In Romania, the majority of our work consisted of playing with an awesome group of kids from the long-term missionary family with whom we lived.
In Nepal, our only true task that we were given was to organize a devotion time each evening for the children of the rescue home at which we stayed.
And yet, every single month, I’ve heard complaints from both my squad-mates and team-mates that we were supposedly being driven too hard… that we shouldn’t be asked to work so many days of the week… that we need some time away from ministry to just “be alone with God” (this is usually code for nap-time).
I hear people complain about the fact that they didn’t raise all of their support money just to sit around all day, and they aren’t being asked to do enough. Yet these same people will spend more time exhausting the resources of their external hard-drive than exhausting their own physical gifts that God has granted them.
People even write blogs about having wasted months, due to a ministry contact not asking them to do enough around a ministry site. But people still aren’t willing to just get off their butts and actually FIND something to do. They seem to prefer having every minute of the day spelled out for them. That’s what children need. But we aren’t children anymore. Our lives aren’t going to be hand-delivered to us; we need to take the initiative to find the work that has to be done.
I think that it’s a slap in the face to our friends and family who are supporting us, to sit around all day and still try to act like we’re going through some sort of “suffering for the Kingdom”.
One of my favorite games to play is “World Race Exaggerations”. In order to play, you need to be in the vicinity a fellow Racer who is skyping some friends or family in America. Just sit back and enjoy all the “hardships” that this person is supposedly going through, being away from the comforts of home (keep in mind, I don’t promote eavesdropping, so only take part in this game if someone has willingly decided to skype in a public area). It’s truly amusing to hear the truth get stretched in order to garner sympathy from loved ones back home.
Keep in mind that I’m just as guilty of many of these offenses as the rest of my squad. I understand that it’s hard to be away from home, and having the internet at our fingertips tempts us to get sucked back into something that can make us feel more like we’re at home.
But I want to choose service.
I want to be exhausted at the end of each day.
I want to go out and find the jobs that get forgotten.
And I want to do it all for God’s glory, and for the sake of advancing His kingdom.
