The founder of the World Race, Seth Barnes has for a long time dreamt of documenting the life of a young missionary. He’s made a few attempts in the past at trying to capturing the life of a World Racer on film, but with so many stigma’s already being formed against the church and mission work he felt his filming projects weren’t doing it justice.
After years of praying about it and hoping God would direct him on the appropriate path Barnes was contacted by Tim and Maureen Gray, founders of a Christian Media Agency called Gray Media (graymedia.tv). Tim and Maureen had two daughters that returned from the World Race with their lives changed, they heard about Seth Barnes’ prayers and wanted to help.
After months of talks they decided to tackle the project and opted for a September 2014 start date. The team decided to follow the September 2014 Route 4, which did not happen to be my route (I had selected Route 1). However, because Route 4 was highly un-enrolled, and because they wanted to give other participants with interesting stories the chance to partake in the project, they contacted the other September Routes and asked if any of us would be willing to switch.
I prayed about the decision for quite some time, but ultimately after a full week of prayer I decided that it was far too good of an opportunity to pass up. Basically the way it will work is, a very small crew will fly out to meet us six different times over the course of the year. They’ll follow us for about a week each time and film us in our natural habitant. Other than that it is up to us to use our own skills and our own cameras to document the experience in between.
Throughout my college career I’ve bounced between a Theater major, a Telecommunications major and a Political Science major. I found it no coincidence that this unique opportunity seemed to encompass all my areas of study. In addition, this project could have come to fruition in the months before or any of the months after me, but God placed it purposefully right here and right now. That in and of itself was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
My route has changed, and is still not finalized, so for a planner like myself that makes this experience all the more challenging. However, at the end of the day this is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am all the more excited for embarkation!
My current route as it stands right now includes 9 of the 11 countries I will ultimately be traveling to:
Guatemala, Nicaragua, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Nepal, Botswana, Swaziland
God Bless and so much love!
Samara
xoxox
