Don’t ever do the World Race!

The World Race messes up your whole life!

You think you’re signing up for a semi-intense mission trip. Get to visit a lot of beautiful countries and have some sweet adventure days. Get to try some new foods and travel with some cool people. Share the love and salvation of God with people who have never heard before and take lots of pictures of the ministry you are doing every day that you love. WRONG. While these things aren’t necessarily untrue, it’s just a very incomplete picture of the reality of the Race. 

The website emphasizes Mission, Community, and Kingdom. Which is great! I agree, let’s go! What they don’t advertise is how those are accomplished practically every day on the field. Allow me to let you in on a few of the things the website doesn’t tell you about that you might want to know before filling out an application. 

On the Race these are a few things you will encounter: 

• Suffering physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually (Constant state of being on your knees)
• Horrible food
• Hard community
• Your heart breaking on repeat
• Limited privacy and alone time
• Inconveniences 
• Cultural norms in countries you don’t agree with
• Dying to self day after day
• Laying aside of preferences
• Long, miserable travel days
• “Unsafe” moments (I put unsafe in quotation marks cause in the worlds eyes you are in some intense places and situations but I’ve found that it’s safer to be there if that’s God’s will than to be safely locked away in your room.)
• Saying goodbye to people you’ve spent the last month pouring everything into

Here is a list of just a few of the nitty gritty daily parts of life they don’t tell you about either: 

• Fishing out tp from the toilet bowl (I’m convinced no other country than the US flushes tp)
• Eating food prepared in unusual ways
• Cold bucket showers
• Getting eaten alive by mosquitos
• Biten by ants
• Forcing yourself to eat the large portion sizes of food you are served
• Eating a steady diet of PB & J’s some months
• Eating the same things over and over
• Learning how to cook with limited utensils and cooking ware
• Carrying toilet paper with you wherever you go, cause you never know
• Eating food that is given to you even when you have no idea what it is
• Packing into a tiny church for services and being called up front to give a music special
• Being thrown into teaching an English class whether you’ve ever taught before or not
• Going into strangers houses and chilling for hours
• Walking everywhere to save money on transportation 
• Finding a coffee shop to get wifi
• Eating on semi clean plates and utensils
• Having no idea what is being said around you so you just smile
• Talking to strangers
• Putting some sort of hot sauce on everything you eat
• Rewearing clothes for the third..fourth.. or fifth time
• Hand washing clothes
• Falling asleep sweaty
• Uncomfortable beds… or sleeping pads
• Drinking lukewarm water
• Giving and receiving really hard feedback
• Eating overly salted or oily food
• Trusting strangers to help you get to where you need to go
• Having two or three currencies in your wallet all the time
• Coexisting with ants, spiders, geckos, or cockroaches in your living space, cooking space, sleeping space, etc.
• Preparing to give a sermon with a three minute heads up
• Always looking for an ATM 
• Debating whether it’s worth it to buy a six dollar small peanut butter jar to get some protein in your diet

As I prepare to go home in the next two days, some things I’m really excited to leave behind with my World Race days and others I’m going to really miss. Here are just a few of the things I’ve been thinking about as I prepare to go home. 

• Others care about germs and therefore don’t normally eat and drink after one another
• Covid. Wait.. is that still a thing?
• I have to remind myself I don’t have to wear the same thing four days in a row
• I don’t have to go outside and use the hose to brush my teeth
• I don’t have to get a bucket to take a shower
• I don’t have to use my pocket knife to cut my apples
• I don’t constantly have to be translating in my head what other are saying around me
• I don’t have to have my calculator out at the store to figure out the prices of everything
• I speak World Race-ez complete with it’s own sign language and facial expressions that now no one in the States will understand 
• I will always carry with me the images of the dozens of locals I got to co-labor with in building the kingdom, wondering if the things we passionately prayer for are coming to pass in their ministries. 
• I’m going to crave local foods that the States wont have
• I have so many clothes I need to get rid of when I get home
• Good thing I’ve been walking a lot cause I’ve heard gas prices are ridiculous
• I need a new pair of running shoes cause the Race did a number on mine
• Going home this time compared to my first Race is a night and day difference, Praise God! 
• This season has been just what I needed. God is so sweet to let me enjoy Him through doing what I love.

What’s the Race all for then cause the picture I painted above sounds kinda like torture. Am I wrong? I didn’t even mention how hard it is to leave your country, family, home, job, friends, etc. Leaving your family is hard. But I’ve discovered it’s worth it for me to leave my family whom I know I will spend eternity in heaven with, to go and invite someone who is lost into the kingdom so they can spend eternity with me and my family as well. 

So there you have it.

The honest truth of what the World Race will do to you. 

You get to decide now if you are ready for the Race to mess up your life. 

I’m so grateful the World Race messed up my life.

* To all my incredible supporters, you made it possible for the Lord to do incredible things in my life and to both expand and strengthen the move of His Kingdom all across the globe. Thank you will never be enough but thank you for partnering with me and adventuring with me as the World Race messed up my life.