Dear Future World Racer

So you want to do the World Race? 

 

Let me tell you about my experience and some advice I want to pass onto future racers.

 

The biggest piece of advice I will give is if you are not ready to face and embrace personal growth, then I would highly recommend rethinking going on this mission trip. I don’t say that to discourage you from going, but your personal growth is going to play a major role in your time on the World Race whether you’re prepared for it or not. 

 

You have two options in which you handle that personal growth.

Option 1: You can build a wall and not let anyone in, refuse to accept feedback, and carry on unchanged. 

Option 2: You can let the Lord do a work (no it won’t be easy), accept feedback and take each one to the Lord, use discernment to decipher what you were told, take ownership, and stand with your arms open embracing the refinement coming your way.

 

If you think you’re ready for personal growth, I’ll move on. There are a few topics I want to hit that were prevalent for me and my time on the race and I think are super important and could be carried on to you as you prepare for this journey.

 

The first one is Community:

 

Community living is hard. 

 

Maybe some of you come from homes where you live with your family, friends, or roommates so you kind of have a taste of what it’s like living with people. But maybe some of you come from living alone, or even if you did live with other people it was a few. Thankfully my squad was a squad of ten, but it was still difficult for me to live with ten other people. I do live with roommates but I have my own room and bathroom, space, alone time, time away and time together; all things that I love and am grateful for and boy did I miss. But I also miss seeing my squad’s faces daily, screaming at each other throughout the house, tackling each other, laughing, and their smiles. 

You will love your squad, have moments where you all want to be together all the time, laugh, joke, play games, etc. But there will also be moments that you want to pull your hair out, long to spend a week alone somewhere, not share a bed, not wait in line for the bathroom when there’s only one, not want to eat what’s on the food menu, and not see anyone’s face before you snap.

 

And guess what……all of those feelings and emotions are ok to have.

 

But what are you going to do when those emotions arise? Sure when everyone is happy and being together, embrace that, keep those memories. And when everyone is at their wits end, embrace that as well, but proceed with discernment and caution. Not everyone likes to have another person in their face asking ten times how they are doing each moment of the day when they seem off, and some people want you in their face making sure they are ok. It’s a fine balance of the difference between the two. Me personally, I didn’t want someone in my face and my squad learned that. If I was off or just not with it that day I needed time to process and I would usually go to someone when I felt ready, or the Lord would send someone (my squad leaders a lot of the time), to check in and I’m more likely to talk one on one. Keep that in mind when you have your squad because the excitement is there to want to know everyone and everything, but the true colors come out and that’s when discernment is key to how to figure out the best way to function as a unit. 

 

One last thing on this topic is that share at a rate in which you are comfortable. There is sometimes this underlying right that because we are all Christians and on this trip that we have to know anything and everything about each person on our squad and that’s just not true. The only right is the right for people to share what they are comfortable sharing and going to who they are comfortable to share with. Growth does happen when we share and allow others to speak into our life, this is true. And we should be open and willing to share but again when we are comfortable and ready to. It’s all a balance. Some of us do need that push or nudge to be able to share and some just need time to prepare. Be aware of those people in your squad and love them in the way they need to be.

 

The second topic is Feedback:

 

If you have gone through training camp then I’m sure you’ve heard the word feedback. Now I can see where this could have a negative connotation because who wants to hear how awful they are as a person right? Who wants to sit and listen to someone that barely knows me tell me about me? Tell me who I am and that I need to change my ways? Well let me break this down…because if you’re reading this you can hear the defensiveness in my typing and that is problem number one facing feedback.

 

Feedback cannot be entered in a space where walls are up and defense mode is on full blast. It won’t end well for the person giving the feedback or the person receiving. You know what you get? Attitude, resentment, bitterness, anger, and separation and Satan would love nothing more than to cause a divide and strife in a group of believers. This also goes back to the personal growth I mentioned. Feedback is a big piece of your personal growth and you have got to be ready to receive it. Listen I can guarantee that some of the feedback you will receive will not be accurate. I remember a few feedback’s I got that were not accurate to who I was, I still received them and took them to the Lord and we talked about it, and I moved on. But you will more than likely get feedback that does apply and is accurate to your life and that is when it is your responsibility to take that and either make a change with it or toss it and fold your arms. It does take emotional maturity to accept what is being said to you (whether you agree or not), and run to the Father. 

 

If you are giving feedback, make sure it is from the Lord. The ONLY purpose for feedback is to make sure that you are telling someone how they look like Jesus or pointing someone back to Jesus. Feedback is not an area to tell someone how it is, what you feel, or what you think about them, revenge, getting back at, or any of the sort. If you have those feelings I would advise talking to your squad or team leader and having conflict management. Feedback needs to be a safe place where your voice can be heard to lovingly tell someone what you see in them that resembles Christ. I wrote a blog called Operation Feedback, you should give that a read where there is more detail into how feedback is done. I would also suggest praying in and out of feedback.

 

The third topic is Friendships:

 

You will make some incredible bonds while on this trip, however it will not be with every single person on your team/squad. Yes a harsh reality, but a needed one. I have heard from previous racers that were on bigger squads that they really wanted to know each and every person but they just couldn’t realistically. As much as it sucks because you are traveling with amazing people, it’s ok to leave your race not having had a close intimate relationship with each and every person. You will naturally draw to those around you that you have things in common with or just mesh with and there will be people that you don’t have things in common with and don’t mesh well with. Now hear me when I say that this doesn’t mean you have clique’s in your group. You have the right to be around or hang out with whoever you want to or don’t want to. However it doesn’t mean disregard the ones that you don’t mesh with. There were people on my squad that I naturally became friends with and wanted to be around all of the time, but there were some that I didn’t and I would like to say that I pursued them, and maybe I did to some degree but there were times I could have pursued them more and I didn’t take the chance. 

 

Pursue people as much as possible, even if they don’t pursue you back. Chase people and get to know them. Hang out with those that you mesh with and enjoy building that sweet friendship. When issues arise (and they will), talk about them. Get through the nitty gritty to have a deeper and stronger relationship for the outcome. Spend time with as many people and build memories (but don’t forget to make time for yourself). 

 

The fourth topic is Hard Conversations:

 

My squad, B Squad, we are experts at this topic! Haha. Boy did we have a lot of hard conversations as teams (we had two) and as a squad. As daunting and annoying as they seemed, they were necessary. There’s this phrase I like to use called “under pockets”, and under pockets are what’s going on beneath the surface that hasn’t been brought to the light. When under pockets hang around and stay it creates this chaotic surface which would only lead to an explosion. I typically would see these under pockets happening, watching them boil, watching them linger and take hold and each time it was a discerning decision of letting the ball roll off the table or confronting it. That will be something that is vital because sometimes it is necessary for things to unfold, explode, happen, and just all hell break loose. And other times you see the under pockets, you see the mini fires and they can be put out. Hard conversations are unfortunately not a one and done type of deal, they usually keep occurring but I remember something told to us by our coaches is that in a family sometimes the same issue arises over and over. And you talk about it over and over and as annoying as it may seem it usually is necessary. Some things do need a solution and then you move on, but some things need more than just one conversation. Deciding which situation and when that needs to happen is an important factor.

 

The fifth topic is Expectations:

 

Release them ALL! Literally, release them, throw them away, burn them, disregard, erase, all of the above. Aside from personal growth this is probably the second biggest piece of advice I can give is to release all and any expectations you have on this trip. I had the expectation I would be traveling the world, internationally, for 11 months. Pulled off the field in month 3! I learned real quick to drop expectations, even though I thought I had, I learned to drop them completely and I had nothing but a full reliance on the Lord. When I tell you anything can happen, I mean anything can happen. From fleeing the country from Peru, Covid scares, quarantined, asked to leave a host home, flat tires, route change, just to name a few. Be prepared for everything! The Lord works through it all and this is for our good, even when it may not seem like it in the middle of it but I realized that the good from this is wholeheartedly depending on the Lord on each and every step. Proverbs 16:9 says that man plans his ways, but the Lord establishes his steps. Yeah we plan the way, prepare, but the Lord knows, nothing is a surprise to him. Release those expectations!

 

The sixth and last topic is Ministry:

 

Before leaving for my race I got asked quite a bit what it was I would be doing and I could only answer with I don’t know or that we were joining local churches or groups and coming alongside them. Honestly I had no clue and really could only know until I got there and experienced what we would be doing. It was hard because your supporters want to know what you are doing and it makes it difficult when you can’t give them a direct answer. But rest assured that ministry is life and truthfully it doesn’t matter what you’re doing because whatever it is, it is for the purpose of serving the Lord. 

 

Ministry will vary for sure. Our squad did a variety of things like evangelism, hospital visits to pray, shoveling horse poop to put into plants, cutting black berry bushes, prayer walks, Bible studies, worship nights, spiritual warfare, prayer vigils, and more. Day to day, hour by hour, minute by minute your ministry will look different. Things will change and you get to go with the flow. But again release those ministry expectations because they will change on you real quick. 

 

This was a long one, but I hope it gave some insight into the World Race and life on the field. For any future racers reading this and you want more details please feel free to reach out because I would love to talk to you about this journey. There isn’t one word to describe this experience, you just have to do it! Hoping this brought some clarity for you!

 

Thanks for reading!