Hope Mendola, World Race alumnus and current Squad Mentor, has been around Adventures in Missions for a while now. She wrote this letter to her supporters when she went on the field for the first time in 2010, thanking them. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Whenever I mention or recommend the World Race to someone, the person usually scoffs at me when they hear about how much it costs. “Well, sure I’d love to do that if I had the money,” they say to me. And then I respond, “But really, God provides the money.”
I can tell the person usually doesn’t believe me though, and I don’t blame them. I was the same way. I remember World Race staffers telling me that God would provide the money, and I didn’t necessary believe them, but I wanted so desperately for them to be right.
Well, they were right.
God provided the money in the most interesting ways. During the first month of support raising the only money in my account had been donated by myself and the mother of a fellow World Racer. After a while I stopped checking my account because it made me depressed, and I’m pretty sure I vowed to never look at it ever again.
Then one of my good friends from college gave me $500. Over the course of my support raising I received many contributions of around $500, but they were always far between.
It was the smaller, more frequent donations that kept me sane. They gave me hope. It made me feel like we were all a part of something — that this World Race thing wasn’t just about me; it was very much about them as well.
Each time someone donated money to me I was left in awe of God’s grace, and equally in awe of the beautiful community that was being created through this act of support raising. I can tell you this, the World Race would not have been the same if I had earned all the money myself. It was so much more meaningful to have been supported — I mean this in a financial way, but it also translates into an emotional and spiritual and physical sense as well.
Going on the World Race was a gift from God — and he gave me this gift by the means of his people.
There was my friend Jason, who worked with me at Applebees, one day he gave me all of his tips from his shift. There were the middle-aged guys who often hung out at the Applebees’ bar — one night they handed me crumbled $5 and $10 bills. When this new girl at my other job heard about what I was doing, she whipped a $20 bill out of her wallet and gave it to me because we worked different shifts, I’m pretty sure that was the only interaction we ever had. There was my friend Claire, who gave me a significant amount of money despite the fact that she was support raising for her own mission trip as well. The night before I left Nashville my friend Dan shook my hand — he slipped me a twenty and said he knew it wasn’t much but maybe I could buy some snacks at the airport.
One time when I was getting my hair cut by my friend Lauren, she told me I didn’t have to pay. “It’s my donation to your trip,” she said. Another time I was at the cell phone store for a phone repair. When the woman who was helping me heard about what I was doing, she didn’t charge me.
There are so many more stories I could tell you — stories of people who gave me money, and consequently sent me around the world in the name of Jesus.
If you are reading this and you are considering whether or not you should go on the World Race based on money — try to trust me, what they say is true. God will provide even if it doesn’t look the way we think (because, if I’m honest, I was hoping someone would donate the entire sum, and I’d be supported from the beginning. But no, it didn’t happen that way. Not at all.)
photos via geralfo, emily_culmer, reemons0227
Hope’s story is proof that despite our often frail faith, God always provides. He brings groups of people together for a cause, for a purpose, for his kingdom. It’s beautiful, really. Now, when people ask us how we afforded the World Race, we get to share stories of your love and generosity with them.
Thank you for supporting us. Together we are the World Race.
