From the outside looking in, it’s easy to look at these last two years from a romantic perspective. Travel. Adventure. Jesus. Community. It’s beautiful. Really and truly, these past two years have been two of the best of my life. I have sat in awe as the sun rose over the Sahara desert. I have stood on two very different parts of the Great Wall. I have surfed on the coast of Taiwan. I have walked the streets of Paris. And I have now crossed the Caspian Sea by boat twice.
These experiences were amazing and wonderful. I’m thankful to have had them. But they alone are not the reasons I would choose to do the race in its entirety twice. Because in all honesty, those moments only make up a very small fraction of what it is. They may be the posts you see on Instagram and Facebook, but they aren’t the moments that define these two years.
When approaching it from an American church perspective, it’s easy to separate a mission trip from life. A mission trip is something you go on from 1-4 weeks and then you return to real life. However, what if it’s not about a trip and it actually becomes life? These past two years have been so much more than a trip. It has been what my life has looked like these past two years.
But in comes Shame. Why are you still dependent on others? Why do you need support when you have a master’s degree? Why are you sending out more fundraising letters when these people have already given so much? Why hasn’t your life amounted to more than this? Your life is just one big trip. When are you going to start “real life”?
You see, fundraising these past two weeks has been so hard. These feelings of shame almost made me submit to giving up: I’ll be okay if I go home. I’ll be able to get a “real job”. I’ll finally be done with this dependency if I can just get home and get a career.
But then God challenged me: “what if this call to fundraising is a call to depend on Me? What if I want you to want this? What if this season of dependency is preparing you for a lifetime of dependency on Me and a lifetime of the knowledge that your resources and your money are not your own, even if you’re the one that earns them?”
Since leaving on that first plane in August of 2017, this has never been a “trip”. On the contrary, without a shadow of a doubt, I can honestly say that I’ve just been doing life. I’ve been letting my walls down with people. I’ve been asked to do things that I never imagined being comfortable enough to do. I now am confident in how I hear from the Holy Spirit. I no longer look for all of the “cool things” to do at every location. Instead, I’m satisfied in the mundane: the grocery trips, the meals shared between friends, the tea times, the 30 hour trains and buses. God is good and He is present in the midst of these just as much (if not more so) as He is in the spectacular views and destinations.
This past month, I sat in a backyard surrounded by flies, with a cup full of tea that I honestly did not want (had 3 glasses already that day), and a tray full of freshly picked fruit. In that backyard, I had the honor and privilege of walking a 73 year old shepherdess to the arms of the Good Shepherd. That moment was surrounded by very ordinary and unspectacular things, but heaven was erupting with joy! At 73 years of age, she accepted Christ as her savior.
And THOSE are the moments that have made these two years worthwhile. It was the night we danced and worshipped God with unbelievers in a Parisian park. It was the day I spent with two refugee children in Jordan, playing games and teaching them English and loving them. It was the night spent in a Japanese apartment as I prayed with my new Chinese friend. It was the mother and child that I interacted with on a metro in China. It was the woman I stopped on the street in Kyrgyzstan, who opened her heart and told me how much she needed love that day because her husband had been beating her. And it was all the cups of tea we had with families in Azerbaijan, as we got to pray for them and share the gospel with them and hear their stories.
I don’t need “The World Race”. It’s an organization that I believe in, that God has used to transform me in ways I never thought possible, but God called me to more than a trip. He called me to a LIFE of dependence on Him. And that will look different in different seasons. It may not always involve fundraising. I honestly hope it doesn’t (haha). But I will ALWAYS need Holy Spirit and I ALWAYS want to be sensitive to His leading, whether that be on the streets of Armenia, or in a coffee shop in Dallas.
And I believe there is still more that He wants to teach me and lead me to on this “trip”. Because of my family and friends who have supported me at home, I was able to be in the Azeri backyard with that shepherdess at a time when her heart was ready to receive. And I believe that God is calling myself and the rest of my squad to these remaining people groups and countries for such a time as this.
And so, in response to God’s challenges at the beginning of this month, I want to say that I DO want to stay. I DO believe that there is even more ahead in Armenia, Lebanon, and Jordan. I DO believe that these past two years have been valuable. And more than that, I DO believe that I am valuable.
I’m not a failure, but I do need your help for the time being. Will you help me reach my deadline to stay on the field and to be fully funded? I’ve seen with my eyes and experienced in my heart the difference that giving can make. I’m beyond thankful, beyond blessed, and beyond overjoyed. If I went home early, my heart would still feel so. But will you believe with me that these remaining three months ahead hold EVEN MORE than what is behind?
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of god in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:12-14
Love you all.
Meg
