Why the World Race?

Now that I’ve officially been accepted into the World Race and fundraising is in full swing, I wanted to take a moment to sit down and answer a question that has repeatedly presented itself. “Why the World Race?” Why would I want to leave the comfort of home for nine months? Why would I press pause on my academics and music? Why would I use a year of my life to do missions at the age of 18? Well, the answer to that is simple. God has called me to go, and that’s exactly what I intend to do. 

Although condensing my answer to something so short and sweet might sound abrupt and unrealistic, looking back, God has been preparing me for international missions for a long time. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” – Jerimiah 29:11. My entire life my family has constantly traveled and taken ‘Great Adventures’ anywhere and everywhere, contributing greatly to the desire I have for world travel. This, combined with being blessed to grow up in a mission-minded Christian home, has been the beginnings of God preparing me to experience the greatest adventure of all–The World Race. What’s more is God has always given me a love for foreign languages, and as an extension, foreign cultures. Immersing myself in the different music, food, languages, people groups, and daily lives of God’s incredible creation stirs so much excitement and curiosity within me. Still, it wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school that God even opened my mind to the idea of taking a gap year.

I’ve always known that I would one day have to satisfy my itch for travel, but I never thought that taking a gap year from school would be how I do it. At the beginning of 10th grade, my mom and I attended a college prep meeting where the speaker talked about the benefits of taking a gap year before college. He then continued to talk about a student who spent a year off school to become a shepherd in New Zealand. Naturally, the mention of living in a foreign country, while gaining brownie points with colleges for doing so, piqued my immediate interest. I later went home to research Christian gap year programs that offered world travel and came across many results, including the World Race. Once again, God used the speaker of this meeting, and my mom’s encouragement to go in the first place, to continue preparing me for the plans He has for my life.

After going over the World Race’s statement of faith with my dad, I felt pretty confident that this was my purpose. But anybody who’s seen me try to make a decision of any kind knows that I’m terrible at it, especially those involving life-changing experiences. I could feel God tugging at my heart to fulfill the Great Commission before continuing on the beaten path of high school, then college, then work. Yet, it wasn’t until I spent ten days living in an African village sharing the love of Christ and seeing firsthand the impact missions can make that God made clear to me my purpose. 

Matthew 28:19 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. I CAN’T WAIT to see the world and share the love of Christ with the people in it. God has opened this door for me to “Go everywhere in the world and tell the good news to everyone” (Mark 16:15) in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Nepal; and it is because of His grace that I am given the chance to fulfill a dream I never thought would happen. The thought of traveling the world to spread the good news to different tribes, tongues, and nations sounds too good to be true, and too perfect for the gifts and talents God has given me. That is why I am going on the World Race. And that is why “I thank Him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because He has judged me faithful, appointing me to His service” – 1 Timothy 1:12.