Here I am…at the beginning of my journey for the World Race. A journey in which I get to travel to four different regions of the world and do ministry all over the world for 11 months. I don’t leave until January, but from now till then, I will be prepping. Over these next 9 months, I will be fundraising, working, diving deeper into my relationship with God, meeting with my team, and just overall getting ready to travel the world. I am excited to begin this journey. But as I begin this journey, you may be wondering how I even got here. Why did I choose the World Race? Well, it’s a long story. But I’ll start from the beginning.
I grew up in a Christian household. I knew about Jesus my whole life. I prayed the prayer and accepted Jesus into my heart at a young age. And for years, I was comfortable living the life I had always lived: livening in northern Indiana, attending church, being involved in the age-appropriate ministry, hanging with my friends, etc. I was living a very “normal” average, American Christian life. But in my sophomore year of high school, God really grabbed ahold of my life. He turned my life upside down by calling my family to the mission field.
I resisted at first. I said nope, no way, I am not moving. Because by the time we would commit to moving and fundraise our money, it would be at the end of the summer right before my senior year of high school. I was not going to spend my last year of high school, living away from everything I was comfortable with. As I entered the second half of my sophomore year, I really wrestled with my faith. I wrestled with God and was so confused as we began prepping for an exploration trip that summer.
That wrestling continued through the summer even as we visited the country we would be moving to. When we were in the country, I went through many different emotions. On one hand, I loved it there and was so ready to listen to God’s calling. On the other hand, I was still wanting to be comfortable. When we got back at the beginning of August and began talking about the next steps, I remember sitting, journaling, and praying, just crying. As I sat there and processed my thoughts and feelings, I recommitted my life to Christ. Ready to go wherever He calls me. It was then that I realized I had been living as a lukewarm Christian and I wanted to be completely on fire for Jesus. I realized I had known about God but hadn’t actually known God.
I entered my junior year of high school and my family committed to moving overseas and we began fundraising. This was when my faith started becoming my own. I spent more and more time in the Word and talking about Jesus and learning more about what owning your faith looks like. I spent that whole year growing and continued to grow as we moved and lived overseas the following year. As I lived overseas, did ministry, and built relationships I began to want to continue to travel. I also felt my call into ministry. I didn’t know what it would look like, but I felt God was calling me into vocational ministry in some capacity.
When I went to college, I wanted to go back abroad as soon as I had graduated. However, throughout my four years here back in the United States, I have gone through the motions of being content here in the States and doing ministry here, but also wrestling with wanting to be overseas once again. At the beginning of this school year, my plan was to find a residency at a church or ministry so I could learn more about ministry in the US. But I wasn’t feeling peace about this plan as I seriously looked into things. I wasn’t sure why because it seemed like it was everything I wanted.
Now, I know a few different people who have gone on the World Race and it had always been at the back of my mind as a possibility for post-grad steps. But it really wasn’t on my radar at all and I hadn’t thought about it since the beginning of my college career. But one morning a little over a month ago, I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw a post from a friend of mine living overseas, doing ministry, and I was reminded of freshman year Makayla and how determined she was to do that at some point. A few scrolls later an ad for the World Race had popped up. I hadn’t looked up the World Race in years and I hadn’t even thought about it. But that morning, I finally decided to look into it and see if these could possibly be my next steps. Well, that “looking into” turned into me applying, interviewing, and committing to the World Race. It was all a very fast process. And I am not someone who moves fast in these things. But I felt a peace that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I felt an excitement about this that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. This was something I felt was the right next step. I mean, come on, I get to travel and do ministry of all sorts for 11 months, how awesome is that?
So here I am…writing my very first blog post at the beginning of this very exciting journey. I am excited to see where God takes me and where God takes us if you choose to go along on this journey with me. Thanks for reading this very long post. But for you to know how I got here, I needed you to know where I started.
My prayer on the journey comes from Isaiah 6:8b: “Here I am. Send me” (ESV).
