$13,800.
I don’t know how far the stretch would be if you lined up 13,800 one-dollar bills end to end. Certainly not as far as I’ve traveled.
$13,800. It seemed like the “impossible” that God was referencing when He said it was such with man.
The day I first found out the cost of my World Race, it seemed like the kind of mountain that could shadow the Himalayas or make Kilimanjaro run home crying to his mommy. I remember thinking that I was glad that this was a God-sized venture, because I was going to need a God-sized miracle to even get me across the threshhold of those Irish hills.
Good thing God made those mountains, because they are ever-so-easily moved and slam-dunked into the sea when He finds that grain-of-sand sized faith in us.
I have met so many people who’s eyes grew wide in adventure as I mentioned my journey. You could see the wanderlust churning, the Holy Spirit inside them screaming that this could possibly be that something more they’d been praying for. They’d do it in a heartbeat….
Until the check the price tag. Then they shake themselves back into reality and all that potential I saw swimming inside them flushes away like so much toilet water.
And I find this to be both laughable and the cause of unrivaled irritation.
I want to tell them, in total honesty, how little $13,800 really is.
When I was on the street in Cambodia, I bought Rosetta Stone in 25 languages. It cost me $4. If you were to buy each language individually, buying this pirated software would save you more than $17,000. There’s your money back, and then some.
In reality, the World Race is a bargain. It is the most bang for your buck you could never believe you’d be able to get. Better than Quibids, even. If you could compare the value you receive from the World Race with anything you could buy, the World Race would still win every time because you literally cannot sell what is gained from that 11 country trek.
$13,800.
Really, people?! $13,800?! That’s the level that you’re willing to let your dreams die? That’s the price that is going to separate mediocrity from what could-have-been? That’s the breaking point for you? That’s it?
What I received from $13,800 was more than I could have feasibly imagined I’d ever receive over the course of an average American lifespan. It bought me 40 people who I hold closer than I ever imagined I could hold 40 people. It bought me 11 countries that served as the background of a love story that I couldn’t have ever believed was so savagely waiting on me. It bought me freedom through brokenness, sanctification through longsuffering, holiness through embracing a new Jesus I never even met before I boarded that Delta flight to Dublin.
So many people invest in their college education to ensure a brighter future. Nobody blinks twice when one semester at a prestigious university tops $13,800 per semester. May I kindly interject here that I did the college thing, and I now work 40 hours a week at a minimum wage job that would never pay the bills if I didn’t live with my mom? I’ll be 26 next month. So much for a brighter future. I could have done this outta high school and saved a world of student loans and a useless immune system from countless all-nighters and cafeteria food.
I wouldn’t hesitate for one millisecond to affirm with my whole being that the World Race did more for me than college ever did. I learned more spiritually during August 2009 to July 2010 than I ever did on countless Christian leadership councils or dorm Bible studies. Not that God didn’t use those times, but life takes on a whole new perspective when you go from listening to sermons about the will of God a few times a week to needing His will to live every moment.
Educationally? In college I knew all I wanted to do was be a missionary. The World Race? Confirmed what I already knew to be confirmed. Enough about that.
Seriously people, I can’t stress enough how little $13,800 actually is. If that’s stopping you from going, then go back to your life and be aware that what you spend on your “extras” will probably accumulate that in a year or two anyhow.
I’ve said it a million times but I’ll say it again: If I, knowing now what the World Race did for me, had to go back in time and pay ten times the amount to go, I would find a way. I literally cannot envision my life without the freedom I’ve found, the revelations of who God is that I wouldn’t have received, the miracles I wouldn’t have seen, the people who’s lives God used me to help change.
$13,800 for a whole new life. A whole new calling. A new direction. A fresh start. A sonship that I didn’t know was available to me. A family of 40 that would, at this moment, fly cross-country to be beside me if I really needed them. A story I could never had an imagination enough to dream, written with me and Jesus as the main characters, the world literally as our stage, a theme of beautiful redemption that washed over the achings of my soul I thought were too deep to be reached.
All for $13,800.
I can literally see the cheap, local commercial filled with kazoo sounds and whoopie cushions where Seth Barnes, in an enormously oversized cowboy hat, shoots bucket of money out of a cartoon cannon, because the deal is just that good.
Scratch that. It’s better. I could totally rename this ministry Seth Barnes World of Discount Races. But the marketing team wouldn’t really like to work with that, I’m sure.
$13,800 scared me to death at first, but even back then I knew in the pit of me that God would take care of it. He did more than that for me, and He will do more than that for you.
$13,800.
The best value ever given and the greatest investment ever made.
*I know the Race costs a little more than that nowadays, so I encourage you to not have a legalistic spirit about this… ha.
