About Me

Hi everyone, and welcome to my first blog post as an August 2022 World Racer!

 

To introduce myself, here’s my “short-and-sweet” testimony:

I was born in Northern Virginia on August 6, 1993. My parents love the Lord, and my brother and I were raised in a Presbyterian church. Most of my early life, my mom battled with ovarian cancer, and she passed away when I was 8. Shortly after that, the church we went to had a big split in leadership, and many families left – including ours. My family tried several different churches in the area, and my dad decided on a Wesleyan church. When my dad’s mom moved to be near us and help my dad with taking care of my brother and I, and she took us to a Lutheran church, where I was confirmed and became involved in the youth group and with worship (needless to say, I have quite a bit of exposure to different denominations).

I never really doubted the existence of God, but much of my youth I thought of Him as a distant and removed being. I didn’t see a correlation between the miraculous and intimate God of the Bible and the God we worshipped on Sunday. Grades were important to me, and they became my identity; I had a difficult relationship with my grandma, and grades were how I felt I could earn her love. I struggled with low self-esteem. I felt alone, depressed, and had suicidal thoughts. In High School, God saved me from a bad spiral of dark thoughts, and flooded me with the truth of His immense love for me, and my value and worth in Him.

God met me in a real and personal way in one of the lowest places of my life. For God so loved me that He sent His one and only Son, Jesus, to atone for my sins and reconcile me to Him (John 3:16-17; Romans 3:10-25). I could not earn salvation, and – counter to my broken understanding of love – I did not need to achieve a certain level of holiness to receive God’s love. Instead, He offered it freely as a gift when I chose to follow Christ as my personal Lord and Savior (Acts 10:34-43; Romans 5:1).

Even after that life-changing encounter, it took me a while to start actively walking out my faith. Through slow growth, and in periods of stagnation, God relentlessly and faithfully pursued my heart. The beginning of 2020 and the shutdown was a big game changer for me. He removed all my distractions – even things I was “doing for Him” – and drew me to His feet. Just me and Him. He has given me such a newfound and fervent desire to want to pursue Him with everything I have, to reassess my plan versus His purpose for my life, and to take the work that He has for me seriously (Matt. 28:19-20). We have no idea how much time we have, and I want to reach the end of the race and look back knowing I lived a life that glorified Him (Psalm 90:12, 17).

 

Why the World Race?

“And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘here I am! Send me.’” – Isaiah 6:8

“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” – Romans 10:13-15

“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of Him, two by two, into every town and place where He Himself was about to go. And He said to them, ‘the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.’” – Luke 10:1-2

 

These are just a few of many great passages that talk not only on God’s heart for reaching the unreached, but also His great plan for doing so in partnership with His Church! We’re not to just be hearers of the word, but to live it out! As we continue our walk with Him, His Spirit continues to work in us, making us more like Christ. That very work of the Spirit began to break my heart for the lost, and started to even challenge what I was spending time doing. He has been giving me Kingdom focus.

I like the World Race because racers get an opportunity to meet many different parts of the Church around the world, and support all different types of work that long-term missionaries are doing to demonstrate the love of Christ in their communities (we will be going into the 10/40 window, where some of the largest unreached people groups live – https://joshuaproject.net/resources/articles/10_40_window). As a racer, I am answering God’s call on my life to take a step of faith. The cost of discipleship is great, but, like Paul, I want to count all as loss for the supreme joy of gaining Christ.

Time is short, and we don’t know how much we have. But I know that I won’t be in heaven one day wishing I spent more time living for myself. Jesus, may my life be pleasing and glorifying to you!

 

Click on the following links if you’d like to learn more about World Race (https://www.worldrace.org/about/) and it’s parent organization, Adventures in Missions (https://www.adventures.org/about).