Dear World Race Jan ’07 Team,
We’ve just about finished assembling your team of 30 (five teams of
six). First let me say congratulations again to each of you for being part of
our World Race team!
You are a select group. We’ve
received over 200 applications and you are the ones who made it through. In all our applicants we look for certain
characteristics that set them apart from the norm: devoted love for Jesus,
submission to God’s will, spiritual maturity, a burden for missions, people
skills, flexibility and most importantly a servant’s heart. We see that in each
of you and can’t wait to see how God is going to work through you next year.
This is the first of a series of emails and blogs that we’ll send in
order to begin to prepare you for the most amazing year of your life. We will schedule some conference calls and
will discuss the team training planned for the fall. Please save it in a file somewhere for future
reference. Our goal is to train you so well that you will be able to hit the
ground running next January.
There are a few things that you can start doing now to
prepare for the World Race:
1. A team web site has been created for the team at http://WorldRaceJan07.theworldrace.org
We will use this site to get to know one another and to begin to create
group identity. We’ll break you into
five teams of six each of which will parallel a WR team on the field. These groups will be just for preparation
purposes – after a month or two, we’ll switch the groups around.
In our next email, we’ll give you a User ID and password to log on.
In the mean time, please take the time to read through the Quick Start
Guide (particularly the part about how to cut and paste from Microsoft Word)
located at http://www.theworldrace.org/quickstart/
2. Start Raising Support now: January may seem a long way off, but
$12,000 is a lot of support to raise. Now is a good time to start talking with
your home church, sending out letters and brainstorming other innovative ways
to raise money. Remember that you don’t have to have all $12,000 raised before
you leave in January (just half of it), most people will give you pledges. For
example if you have 5 families that want to support you with $200 per month
every month in 2007, then you have all your support in! Be looking for a packet
in the mail that will have some support cards and envelopes for you to send out
to your potential donors. Begin working
on getting your prayer team and support team mailing lists together now.
3. Make sure you have enough pages in your passport :o) You are all well seasoned travelers and you
may need to send your passport in to have more pages sewn in before you leave.
4. Start praying. Be in prayer for how God is going to use you and your
team mates for the race, the bonds that are going to be formed between you and
your team mates, the selection of teams, safety in countries, visas, culture
shock, endurance through the trip, sickness, discernment, for your family and
friends to be supportive, pray for a prayer team to pray for you every day that
you are gone…by now you get the point, just be in prayer for anything and
everything you can think of for the Race.
5. Pre-trip training: Please
check it out: http://www.theworldrace.org/custom/worldrace/training/
We offer 8 weeks total training in four two-week modules. We highly recommend that you attend as many
of these trainings as you can. The first
one is scheduled to begin September 6 here at our base in Gainesville.
I promise you, it will change your life – the trainers are world class
teachers. We will be posting a web page
on the World Race site that describes it.
We recommend raising additional funds to cover the cost of these courses. The last two week module takes place in Mexico in
January and is covered in the cost of the trip.
6. Check out the current WR team’s blogs to get an idea for what your
year may look like. Feel free to ask
questions. Information will start coming your way; the more we find out the
more you will know. However if you do have some burning questions please feel
free to email them to me and I will try my best to answer them in an upcoming
email or packet.
If you haven’t already emailed Serena a picture of yourself, please do
so ASAP.
7. Please log onto my blog daily:
www.sethbarnes.com – I use the
blog to raise a lot of the issues that you’ll confront during your World Race
and to disciple many in the AIM network.
Your support team,
Seth & Serena
The Blog: www.sethbarnes.com
The Ministry: www.adventures.org
The Adventure: www.theworldrace.org
Disciples made. Lives
changed. Intimacy gained. Compassion expressed.
