Why I’m Doing World Race

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my World Race blog! I’m so excited to use this blog to share how God is working in my life as I fundraise and prepare for this trip, as well as how He is moving in and through my team overseas! I want to just start by sharing my testimony of how God has shown Himself to me throughout my life, and how and why I decided to go on this trip!

My Testimony

I’ve lived in West Richland, Washington for most of my life. I’m 17 years old and about to graduate high school this June! I was raised in a Christian home, my dad is a pastor and has planted two churches in our town, and my mom works at a local christian pregnancy center. It feels like I’ve always been a “Christian” but I would say when I was 6 years old I put my faith in Jesus. However, it wasn’t until 4th and 5th grade that my faith became more real in my life. I went through many months of not being able to sleep during these years, and sought the Lord deeply for deliverance. The Lord delivered me from this experience when I began to just pray continually throughout the night. I learned to not focus on my anxieties, but instead I would pray, sometimes for hours. Through this, God allowed me to sleep again, but ultimately, I began to form a more personal relationship with Christ, built on reliance on Him. I was 10 years old when I got baptized and really started walking with the Lord and growing in my relationship with Him. Throughout middle school and high school I helped lead a christian club at my schools, and this was also a huge faith builder in my heart. Not many students wanted to sacrifice their lunch time or after school time to meet and talk about Jesus, and it was just hard to form a community in that atmosphere. But I saw how prayer and seeking the Lord for guidance produced wonderful fruit, from kids coming and hearing the Gospel for the first time, to just encouraging young believers to draw closer in their relationship with God. I have also been deeply involved in Church growing up, and have really enjoyed attending youth group! God has blessed me with some of the most wonderful mentors and peers who love Jesus and have encouraged me in my walk with Him.

What Led Me To The This Trip

Something I’ve struggled with throughout high school has been the temptation to be anxious rather than coming to the Lord. Over the past year the way the evil one has used that in my life is to keep me from seeking the Lord for my plans for the future, and instead to lean on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). I began to research colleges and I felt like I needed to make a decision on my future career immediately, even when I didn’t feel a huge calling. But praise be to God! What He has done throughout my whole life is lead me by showing me that He will provide without me striving to figure things out on my own. God has used my parents in many ways to speak and lead me. They told me I needed to relax and listen and wait for God to lead me to a career or for a plan for a gap year. When I finally started resting and just being patient for God to show me my next steps was when my parents found and showed me World Race!

I felt like God really led me to pursue this trip to Africa! I had researched some missions organizations that were not clear on their theological teaching, but I loved how the World Race was clear about their teaching aligning with the Bible! I also love kids and working with kids, so to hear that this trip is all about kids, from teaching to feeding to singing, just really awoke a passion within me! I also knew I wouldn’t be able to go on a year long missions trip, so the 4 month trip starting in January felt like the perfect timing! Another minor… but actually kind of important thing: I love warm weather! And Africa is definitely warm! But one of the most important parts of this trip was that instead of just launching into missions work and sharing the Gospel, World Race does discipleship and missions training for two weeks beforehand! This stuck out to me as a wonderful opportunity to grow in my faith and relationship with Christ before going to share the good news!

I already feel like God is growing my faith and reliance upon Him through this journey and I am so excited to continue to share with you all the mighty ways God is working! Stay tuned!