Why I’m going on the Word Race

What’s up everybody! As I’m guessing you already know by now, but just in case you don’t, I’m Luke Myers and this is my blog. This is my first ever blog post and I just want to tell you guys about why I’m going on the World Race and how I got to the point of taking this huge step in my life of doing a 9 month overseas missions trip. Why do I want to go on the race? Well, I’ve been interested in missions for a while and I want to see if God’s will and plan for my life is doing missions in some form or fashion, or if it’s something else. Also I’m hoping even if He doesn’t have missions for me, that through my experiences on the race and serving in different ways and doing different things, some I may have never done before, that I can come back more knowledgeable of who God has made me to be, and what job I can do that I can best use my talents, passions, and experience that’ll  bring Him the most glory and advance the Kingdom. Some other reasons I’m extremely excited about going, include that I’ve never even been on a missions trip before and I definitely want to go on one. What!!! You’ve never been on a missions trip and you’re choosing to go do missions for 9 months??? Yep, I know an experience like this, far away from home for 75% of a year doing things I’ve never done before, will be really good for me  and will push me mentally, socially, physically, and best of all spiritually. And that’s how God refines us, is though the fire. I’m so excited to go on this race, as I know I’m going to come back different in so many good ways. So now on how I even ended up here preparing to go on a 9 month overseas missions trip like this. My faith has always been a big part of my life, especially recently, and so I’ve always felt that I wanted to pursue a career where God is at the center and He is the focus. My 1st summer ever attending a summer camp is when missions started to interest me. So during that weeklong Christian camp there were multiple messages on missions. I remember being really intrigued by those messages. Then the next year of camp, though this was a different camp, we again had a message on missions one night and I remember the Pastor having everyone bow their heads and go the back of the room where they could talk to some of the leaders if they felt like God was calling them to missions or pastoral ministry. I went back and then talked to a leader about my interest in missions. I have to be honest, I don’t remember feeling like God was calling me to be a missionary or anything, but I was interested in missions, so I went to the back anyways. I was going into 11th grade at this point. Missions continued to interest me and whenever someone would ask me about what I wanted to do after I graduated High School (which I was asked a lot!) missions was something I’d mention that I was considering. Then came senior year. Life got real! And fast too! As I was looking into options of things to do, I looked into gap year missions programs. It’s funny because I remember World Race being one of the programs I looked at but inevitably eliminated. Later on, I had a conversation with two of our neighbors whose daughters both did the race. I was super excited and interested after talking to them. I looked more into World Race and applied, but I was super bad about filling out all the information I had to give to World Race and I missed some deadlines for that information and so I ended up putting it off. I thought I needed to reapply, and so when it seemed that all the trips I wanted to go on filled up, I gave up on the World Race. A couple months later, after I’d just applied for a different gap year missions program, I got text from Bill Swan, who is now my leader for the race. He did include in the text that he was from World Race, but I guess I read the text so fast I skipped over that part and I thought it was someone from the other program I’d just applied for. I scheduled a call with him, and during the call I mentioned the other program’s name, and Bill explained to me that I must’ve gotten World Race confused with a different program.  All that story to say, God works in mysterious ways, and whatever His plan is, is what will happen. And I’m so glad that He’s in control and I’m not! So that’s my story of why and how I’m here today a bit over 2 months out until I go on the race. Until next time! Your boi Luke out!