So how did I come to be a participant in the World Race? Well, I have always had a fierce interest in traveling, and not the vacation kind of traveling (although vacations are great too), but the get dirty, rough the elements, experience the culture, work hard, gain a new perspective on life kind of traveling. I traveled to South Africa in college, which was awesome, but still not quite as rugged and meaningful as I was hoping for (too short). I also was scheduled to go on a medical mission trip to Haiti with my family, but the orphanage ended up canceling the trip. As a result, I have been burning for a legitimate trip for quite some time now. In addition to this, I have always had a passionate love for serving people in need and doing everything I can to help someone who is down (this passion has lead to my interest in medicine as a future career). More recently, God has put a burning in my heart to spread His word, the promise of salvation, and His love to the lost and broken. My King has told me “Freely you have received, freely give“….and I intend to!
About a month ago I began to analyze all three of these spiritual gifts given to me by the Father, and realized that God had packaged me perfectly for mission work and was leading my heart in that direction. Love for travel, love for serving, and burning to spread the gospel = Gods will for me = mission work. I decided to search on the internet for short term missions going on this summer when I stumbled upon the World Race. I had heard about the World Race before at school, and remembered how amazing it sounded, so I decided to check out the website. That night I sat there for hours reading blogs from past and current participants and immediately felt a fierce burden on my heart for this mission. The Race was not a short term mission like I had origionally planned on doing, but I had this intense burning in my heart for it that I could not ignore. I decided to put in my application and leave the rest in God’s hands. Within a week my application was accepted, I passed my interview, and was admitted to the July 2010 World Race squad. This made it pretty clear that I was following the right path, but even further confirmation came when I hadn’t heard back from ANY of the 8 jobs that I had previously applied to (and I consider myself a strong candidate)! Since then God has shown me in small but powerful ways each day that the World Race is EXACTLY where I need to be this next year! God is so great; it is wonderful to see God’s plan for me and recognize how He blessed me with the gifts to fufill it long ago! I cannot wait to see what He has in store for me and my teammates on this trip!
