WARNING ⚠️ 

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Please note, before reading through my story there will be topics discussed and shared that may be sensitive toward certain people and may go against one’s personal beliefs. This is my story and I do not expect everyone to understand or agree with the things that I am sharing. Please know, however, that everything that I’m about to share is true and are things that have been said to me and I have gone through. My hope is that it’ll bring clarity to questions that people may have as well as hope and healing to people that have experienced similar things, and finally a warning to those who are looking into going on a trip with World Race.

World Race Blog Post

Chapter 1.  (my life before)

Before I start sharing my story with World Race, I wanted to give a little context into what my life was like before and how it led up to me wanting to do the World Race. For as long as I could remember, I always wanted to be a firefighter, this was my dream job and a goal which I pursued for years. I got a job before I was 18 driving an ambulance and was involved in the fire exploring program with my city for many years, moving up the different ranks. I also did some lawn mowing as a side hustle to make some extra cash and burn through the endless amounts of energy I had. I thought my life was pretty good and I was excited about what the future would hold for me as a firefighter. When I was a young teenager, my parents adopted one and then a few years later another child with disabilities which changed mine and my family‘s life drastically for better and for worse. Being the oldest of now six siblings two of them with disabilities brought on a lot of challenges that I am even now realizing. What my life was like at that point in time was; a business owner, busy with classes and another job, trying to pursue a career with the fire department, and being the oldest of six siblings while helping my parents with my younger siblings with disabilities. There was a lot of feelings and other things that I experienced that I pushed down so that I could always be on my A game. Some of the hardest things that my family went through during that time were multiple 911 calls for my siblings not breathing or having seizure, multiple police searches of our house because my two other siblings with disabilities were what you would call runners and would run away from home with no sense of danger. One in particular would do this many times often with me being woke up in the middle of the night to go and look for her or dropping what I was doing in the middle of the day because she was nowhere to be found. Fast-forward a few years and my dream of becoming a firefighter was almost a reality. I had my interviews which went really well and late 2019 I got a call from the chief of the department saying that I passed backgrounds and had a conditional offer with a few more steps that I needed to take before starting the academy in March 2020. I was ecstatic I started closing out my clientele that I had with my business and preparing myself for what would be a very intense multi month training academy. As my friends in the academy started getting their final offers I was starting to get worried since I hadn’t gotten mine yet. Then right after I was wrapping up a trip to Disneyland with my brother in February 2020 I got an email saying that I was not chosen to proceed and that they were withdrawing my conditional offer. To say I was devastated would be an understatement everything I had worked for and everything that I had put my identity in was taken away I had no idea where to go. Fast-forward just a week later Covid hit and my business and means of money was deemed non-essential and so I was stuck at home with nothing to do, weeks turned into a month, and I started going restless almost deciding to join the National Guard for some reason though I withdrew before starting basic training. After a few weeks of working for a friend of mine‘s company I saw an ad for a business conference and decided to go for it. A few months later I passed the state test to get my landscape contractors license and was traveling around the US going to business conferences, staying at fancy resorts, meeting influential people, and closing large landscape projects, I thought that I had everything. Well months turned into a year or two and all these people I had looked up to and payed money to learn from slowly started to fall through. News articles stated that these people were cheating others and scamming. Their businesses went bankrupt and they were facing jail time. This was pretty hard for me to hear so I ended up leaving that behind and just focusing on my company myself and ended up growing it to be a very lucrative business. Fast-forward another year or so and something was different. The restlessness in me grew, and I started feeling really depressed. I felt like there was more to life and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I started to withdraw from my church  because of my depression but also because there were certain people and teachings that I didn’t agree with. I tried talking with people about it, but it didn’t really go anywhere and so instead of keep trying, I just pulled away slowly. After a few months of this, my sister reached out to me and said that she had found an organization called World Race, which sounded like something I would be interested and it was.

Chapter 2. (World Race second guessing) 

I did some research into World Race for a few weeks. I talked to some people about it. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos. I went on their website and read blog posts from past and current racers as well as the statement of faith and other things. There were a few negative comments here and there which I feel like with an organization of this size would be common . However everything and everyone I talk to had positive things to say about it. I prayed about it more and finally decided to apply. The application process in my mind was pretty easy especially for something of this magnitude. I had to have a pastor give a reference for a week long missions trip before but they didn’t require any reference here. I filled out a simple application, had a quick call where I could ask some questions, and then set up my interview. My interview was about an hour and before the interview was done, I was told that they would love to have me a part of the program. The lady I spoke to said that she felt like God wanted this for me and who was I to say no to what God wanted so I paid the deposit and started doing fundraising and taking the steps to prepare. Fast forward a few more months and I was on my way to meeting my goal. We were told that we had to have 50% of our $19,000+ goal by training camp and so I was out there with garage sales, bake sales,  and other forms of fundraising. Come November, I made the hard decisions to liquidize my company that I had built I also sold my vehicle and moved out of my house in to my parents house. I felt like if I was gonna do this, I should go all the way, especially since I was gonna be gone for 11 months. December came and went, and before I knew it I was saying goodbye to my family and I was on my way to training camp 100% funded. I was pretty terrified mainly because I was going into a very unfamiliar area and as a person who likes familiarity and comfort, there was a lot of stepping out of my comfort zone coming up. I think the biggest shock for me came pretty much right out of the gate when we had our first worship service night one. I was under the impression that it was going to be a non-denominational approach and that there would  be multiple different types of Christianity. As someone coming from a church where certain worship was look down upon and considered sinful I was completely taken back that there were people lying on the floor, jumping up and down yelling, crying, speaking in tongues, etc. They told us that their goal was to have the training camp be the hardest and most difficult time out of the year and that the rest of the time in other countries would be easier. Some of the things that made this time hard was having us all sleeping on the floor in a giant room in close quarters to where we’re almost touching each other and having to pack everything all up every day. We had early mornings and late nights filled with many long sessions on different topics ranging from childhood trauma, forgiveness, the demonic realm, and many others. We ran through many different scenarios, including a street market, where we had to make it through a crowded area without getting our pockets picked and buying dinner for our small team. We did house call scenarios, we did airport scenarios where someone people had there luggage lost and had no sleeping bag or mattress. The food tended to be on the more minimal side with some meals, being no more than a muffin and some coffee for breakfast. On culture day we had to eat some fermented eggs and a bowl of larva as a team, which was quite interesting. Needless to say with the long days, intense training, emotional, and heavy sessions, as well as the high octane worship time I was both mentally and physically exhausted after the first couple of days and didn’t really get any better. I tried talking to a few people which definitely helped but since I came from a background that it seemed like not many people there did it was really hard to relate. I ended up skipping out on a lot of the Worship services to just go and walk and talk with God by myself, which was looked down by people who talked to me about it and came and asked me to come back multiple times. I had someone try and anoint me at one point which was a bit weird so I declined and then got stuck in a conversation about anointment and such. I also had numerous people come up to me when I was in the worship time tell me words from God which I really didn’t know how to take. There was a freak storm while we were that for most most of the time it was below freezing for a majority of the day. Our porta potty’s got frozen as did our portable sinks so we had to endure the smell and use hand sanitizer. I got to lead some worship a few times which was really cool and it helped me grow in my guitar skills. We also found out toward the very end of our time there what our teams were going to be, and I was pretty excited about who was going to be on my team as well as the different roles that we were going to have and where we were going to be serving.

Chapter 3. (Thailand and cultural experiences)

Well, our final day at training camp came and we said some hard goodbyes to friends that we had made, but were filled with excitement as we were headed to our first country Thailand  The longest flight I’ve ever been on was five hours and so these next few days were gonna be an adventure. In total we traveled about 40 hours not including layovers and a 12 hour time change. We had two short flights from Georgia to Colorado,  Colorado to Canad, and then we had our long flight which was about 18 hours from Canada all the way to Bangkok Thailand. From there, it was a little chaotic we said goodbye to one team and then weren’t able to find the right transportation so we ended up taking a few short trains, walking with all of our luggage a few miles to the bus stop where we took a 10+ hour bus ride. At the final stop we said goodbye to the other team then my team took another 20 minute car ride to the café where we would be staying at for the next two months and helping serve there. For our team, we had a pretty chill start. We were staying above a café, which served some fantastic food and coffee, and we were going to be helping them with their program that was geared towards helping men and women out of the sex industry. We were told day one that the first week would be getting to know more about the ministry, meeting the staff, and also free time to explore the area. I quickly found myself the odd one out since most of the people on my team were very charismatic and or big into speaking in tongues, visions,  dreams, healings, etc. For instance, one person on our team, was so convinced that anyone could speak in tongues that they were willing to speak in tongues on demand and teach other people on our team how to speak in tongues. I felt weirded out by this not because I didn’t agree, but because I didn’t really know what I believed. I just had not really had too much experience with those things and had people telling me that certain things were wrong and sinful and not possible and I just didn’t know what to believe. I also was picked on and made fun of for not being an emotional person or sharing about my past my family or my feelings. This was something that had been a hard thing for me for a while, and my family back home had even mentioned it. I’m still learning a lot about myself since coming off the field, but I think this mainly was a coping mechanism after being hurt by quite a few people from opening up and then also just being a provider for my family and feeling like I couldn’t share what was going on because I had to live up to certain expectations. I just got in the habit of powering through and not sharing or dealing with my feelings or emotions. My squad mates often poked fun or tease me about this and after a while, realized this wasn’t a kind thing to do and so they stopped, but it still was hurtful and made me less want to share with them. Because of the difference and a lot of religious thinking, as well as personalities, I fell back into my old habit of just keeping to myself, listening to my music and not letting others into my life. Obviously not a healthy thing to do, but it had become a survival instinct of mind since I had been let down so many times before, and it was happening again here. One thing that our team talked a lot about and was very focused on for some weird reason was the demonic realm but this was also something that they talked a lot about at training camp and would become a topic even later on as well. Still to this day I am not sure why certain Christians are so enthralled with this topic. It was hard for me personally with my limited knowledge of the subject as well as people from my past telling me different things and what people are telling me now. I disagreed and was confused by a lot of the things that they said which for me made me feel like more of an oddball and I think caused other people on my team to feel and think differently about me. We started our first week of official ministry where we were working at a house, painting and cleaning it. This would be a transition house for specifically women with children as they move into a better life. For me this was awesome because I love working with my hands and being active. The rest of the ministry would mainly look like sitting in an office setting doing work on computers and teaching. While I do enjoy aspects of that it is definitely not my forte and I think I was a little nervous and scared about what I would look like being cooped up inside for a long period of time. Luckily though there was a park nearby and I did spend a lot of time going for walks which was nice. About halfway through the week of cleaning the house some issues came. Up until then me as well as some other people on our team would listen to our music while working. Since we didn’t really talk too much to each other while we were working, I thought there wasn’t any harm, but our team leader thought differently. She made the decision that we would not be allowed to listen to our music anymore while doing ministry and that she would be playing worship and praise music out loud. While I’m not against this type of music, I can’t personally listen to this all day long and for someone that was already having a little bit of a harder time with people on the team and their types of beliefs, listening to their type of music was not helping anything. Another thing that happened was one of our teammates had a conversation with our team lead and asked to have prayer over him. Apparently he was having a hard time with some stuff from his past and wanted prayer to move on. What followed was him waking all of us guys up in the middle of the night coughing relentlessly. He swore he had a vision and that this was God expelling things out of his body and that he would be healed by the end of the week. After a few days however, us guys got pretty annoyed and were strongly encouraging her to take medicine and go see a doctor which he did not want to do. Finally, he agreed and went to go see a doctor to get some medication, but it still would be a while before he was fully better. While I do believe that God can heal us I also believe that medicine and doctors are essential as well. I think this particular week was kind of the start for me on things going downhill. I know it sounds terrible to say that only a few weeks in and it started going awry, but I think that it did from the start and now that I was even in more close quarters with people who were more in my business and sharing there opinions and biblical theology, it made it worse.

Chapter 4 (I didn’t know it would be this hard)

Well something changed in me this week and I started having a really hard time mentally and spiritually. I still talked with God, but it became harder to hear his voice and instead I began hearing and having other thoughts in my head that were causing me to be confused. The music that I was listening to while not bad wasn’t probably the best choice for this, but it was the only thing that would help me clear my head and keep from having these thoughts. My mind was so confused and so exhausted from hearing opposing views on everything and from having people constantly trying to get me to share things and be vulnerable. I felt out of control and in that moment, I turned to a coping mechanism that I hadn’t struggled with for a long time. I resorted to forms of self harm to cope with everything and have some sort of control in what seemed to be an extremely chaotic and terrifying time. A part of me was done and wanted to leave everything, including this world, but another part of me was saying that you’re so close to a breakthrough, this is what you’ve been wanting you got this. It was so hard though not having people that I could trust to share the hard things that we’re going on because I wasn’t sharing there was more judgment. It finally got so bad and I got so scared that I made a call to our teams male mentor who happened to be the husband of the organizations president. He shared his testimony and we talked a little bit more, which made me feel better. He also encouraged me to talk to our squads mentor who I had talked to briefly during training camp. He also told me that we would do a regular book study together and told me to download the book on my Kindle that I had brought with me. This phone call gave me hope and I went to try and download the book on my Kindle. For some weird reason it wasn’t working and in the process of trying to download it I deleted every single book that I had on there and spent years adding and collecting which was pretty devastating. I did end up scheduling a call with put squad mentor which was good and bad. I decided I would be open with her and I shared what was going on in my head some of the thoughts I was having and the music I was listening to. I think it kind of scared her and if there wasn’t already talks going on with upper leadership there was now. She encouraged me to listen to better music and to talk with my team since they were right there and could help walk alongside me. For