i’m not coming home from the world race.

It’s true.

The girl who left 11 months ago on this crazy, wild journey called The World Race isn’t coming home. 

It isn’t possible.

Because who I am today is different than who I was a year ago. And who I was a year ago, is different than who I was the year before that. It’s a beautiful, wonderful part of this thing we’re all caught up in called life. 

It’s just like Donald Miller writes in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: 

“The human body,” he says, “essentially recreates itself every six months. Nearly every cell of hair and skin and bone dies and another is directed to its former place. You are not who you were the time before.”

I am reminded over and over again that transformation is essential to life. Life is a story, and good stories don’t have stagnant characters; the stories we remember are the stories with dynamic characters, characters who are in the process of being transformed.

And what transforms a character?

Tensions. Trials. Obstacles. Conflict.

I can’t stop thinking back on this year, especially as a Field Producer for the Word Race Doc Project, and seeing it through the lens of story. 

Miller also writes, “Somehow, we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather than a Master Storyteller.

I have been transformed this year. And yes, there have been obstacles. It has been hard. But if it wasn’t…wouldn’t that make us stagnant characters stuck in a story that’s predictable? 

When we get down to it, don’t we find that we actually want the hard stuff? the stuff that makes us fight? the grit and the grind with the power to refine? 

Do we want to stay the same? 

Or do we want to be transformed? 

I believe God wants us to experience transformation, not stagnancy. And transformation, more often than not, doesn’t take place on the easiest, smoothest looking road. 

The Master Storyteller says, “We can rejoice when we run into problems and trials, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4). 

I especially like what Donald Miller writes about the regeneration of our skin cells. Before new ones take their place, olds one have to die. 

Why does Jesus want us to die to ourselves?

So that in place of ourselves … we make room for more of him. 

So what am I getting at here?

This year, I have lived inside a great story. And I am thankful for every struggle God wrote within it…because each one transformed me–is transforming me still–and in whatever way God wants me to be…I deeply desire to be transformed by him.

And that’s always been His Ultimate Plan.

The Master Storyteller says, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

These past 11-months, I focused on memorizing God’s word in my heart. For the past six months, I’ve been hanging onto Colossians 3:1-17. 

“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature … You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things … Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”

Did you catch that?

Put. On. The. New. Self. 

Life is transformation. Because life with God is about being made more and more into the image of his Son. And you don’t need to be on the World Race to experience that. It’s everyday, it’s every moment with him. It’s every trial. It’s every pain. It’s every feeling of discomfort. It’s every obstacle in front of you. It’s every fork in the road, and every moment on your knees. 

It’s every time you ask, “Lord, how are you using this to make me more like your Son?” The answer to that question, I’ve learned, is always the point of the story.

I’ve learned too, that our lives are stories, and I want God to write mine for me. 

Because writing your own story would be like planning your own surprise birthday party. And all I can think to that is, “How lame would that be?” I’m so glad I don’t write my own story because I know the One who does. And He’s a way better Author than me. 

All of this to say…

I can’t wait to come home.

I can’t wait to keep journeying forward.

I can’t wait to continue being transformed…for the rest of my life. 

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Q: Hm. I wonder what Katy learned on the World Race? Ya know, like, personally about herself, and about God and stuff? 

A: Lots. Keep reading!

I spent the last few weeks of the Race reflecting on “11 Lessons” God taught me throughout the year–one for each month. These aren’t recaps of what I did, but what God did in me. These are the personal things, the real things, that God has been speaking to my heart this year.

If you want to know what they are, check out the posts below!

Month 1

 

Before the World Race, I’d tell you my least favorite place to be in the world was a hospital. Month 1, in the mountains of Guatemala, where did the Lord put me to serve? A government hospital. This abandoned and beautiful little girl named Anita showed me how the love of Jesus transforms dark to light, despair to joy. God showed me that just like a father places his child on the ground to walk when they want to be held so that their legs can become strong, God sometimes takes us out of our of comfort zone in order to make us stronger–to help us learn to walk. A child might cry when we first set them on the ground, and being out of our comfort zone might be painfully hard, but a good father helps his children become strong. The child will one day thank the father he didn’t carry him around all his life; I thank God he loves me enough to challenge me to be uncomfortable because I know through it, I am stronger.

 

 Month 2

Month 2 of The World Race my team traveled all over Nicaragua meeting incredible people doing incredible work as we looked for new ministries to send future-Racers to. God led us to the kindest, Jesus-loving family and spoke sweet words to my heart through their little girl. The two of us just hit it off: we were ballerinas; we were Indian princesses; we had sleepovers; we giggled about boys. I looked at this little girl’s beauty and innocence in awe and God said to me, “That–is how I see you.” This sweet girl’s very name means “laughter.” I realized that month–mine means “pure.”

 

Month 3

Month 3 of The World Race I became a dance teacher. In a rural village in the Philippines God bonded me to two little girls; I’d spend time with them after school on the basketball court and it was here God restored my heart for dance. Every day I’d come in my dance leggings, hair in a bun, speaker in hand, and the three of us would just be free. We learned stretching and posture and bar exercises, and even choreography. At the end of each “class” we’d sit in a circle and sing songs for Jesus, and pray together holding hands.

The girls were not only precious to me, they were talented dancers! I thought about all the recitals I’d had in my life and was saddened these girls might never have the same chance. So, we had a recital. Our last day we put matching ribbons in our hair and all the Racers and maybe 40 Filipino kids gathered around the basketball court. The girls were nervous, but at the end, everyone erupted into cheering; the girls faces were beaming. This month, God got me started on LETTING GO OF PERFECTIONISM. In the dance world I grew up in, you are always striving for perfection because you can always do it just a littleeee bit better than the last time. In the Philippines, God started teaching me to have grace for myself; if you live life without it, you will wear yourself down. God showed me Who gave me my heart for dance in the first place, and that he doesn’t want my impossible efforts at perfection, He just wants me.

 

 Month 4 

 

Month 4 of The World Race I was loving on Thai girls in the Red Light district of Chiang Mai. God taught me so much that month about the power of prayer: He hears and He answers. Each night a team would go out to minister in the bars, and a team would stay behind to intercede in prayer on their behalf. It’s something the ministry takes very seriously, to the point that a team cannot go out into the bars UNLESS a prayer team is actively engaged behind the scenes. As the month went on, I began to understand why. The battle of human and sex trafficking transcends the surface and goes deep into the heart and spirit. Going up against that demands something bigger than ourselves.

I met this beautiful friend the first night I went into the bars and after praying for her the whole month, we were able to connect about Jesus on my last day there. After being out working late into the morning, my friend overslept our afternoon coffee date by two hours and nearly missed it, but I prayed and prayed and prayed and somehow, she still showed up before her next shift at work. I’ll never forget the time I had looking into this woman’s crying eyes and telling her she doesn’t have to work at the bar anymore, there is hope and his name is Jesus. I don’t know where my friend is today; please continue praying for her with me. I know that it makes a difference.

  

Month 5

Month 5, in Cambodia, I fell in love. Because of this little boy–this precious little boy; this little boy who lives in an abandoned railroad station; this little boy who made my heart sing–because of him I know that one day, God-willing, I will make it through having a child remembering how I felt when I held this little one in my arms. If you know me, you know I could not have said that 11 months ago because everything about pregnancy I’ve always found terrifying. But God spoke to me through this little boy. I’m going out on a limb here, but I think a 2-year-old might have changed my life this year.

 

Month 6

 

Month six of the World Race I spent traveling all over Nepal. It marked half way through the trip and it was nearly my breaking point–yet I look back on it and find it beautiful. It was bitter cold, it was testing, it was trying, it was exhilarating. It was the most unique month of my life. I remember trekking 8 hours on foot to a village; I remember when my teammate had a minor head injury in the middle of the hills of nowhere and a man we referred to as “the angel” crossed our path, rubbed some herbs on her scalp and then went along his way; I remember the panic I felt riding up the tallest mountain I’ve ever been on, teetering on the edge of the “road” in a sketch “bus;” I remember carrying a chicken home and then watching my teammate slaughter it for dinner; I remember bathing in a river; I remember the old woman in the mountains who jumped into my arms, and my sweetest little Nepali sister who slept next to me on the floor of the church every night. 

I remember thinking, “I have already seen and been through so much…how could there be more?” But that is exactly what God said to me in Nepal, “I. Have. More.” He certainly did. He still does. The best part is, I know He always will. 

“Now to him who is able to do IMMEASURABLY MORE than all that we ask or think…” – Ephesians 3:20

 

Month 7

Month 7. Nizamabad, India. This month was full of villages, praying, preaching, and chapati. My word this month was BOLD. Through my teammates speaking life into me, I began to believe and understand that the Lord really does speak to my heart. Like I heard my friend say this week, “My Redeemer lives. I spoke with him this morning.” In India, I got to preach–including the day this photo was taken and I wasn’t expecting to, and I asked God what he wanted me to share as I walked to the front of the church. And wouldn’t ya know? He told me.

 

 

Month 8

 

Swaziland. After five months in Asia, Africa came like a breathe of fresh air. And that’s exactly how Swaziland felt: like a place to get built back up again. God taught me about resting in him this month as we had picnics together–Jesus and I–when he would wake me up at 6 a.m. each morning to go sit in the yard with him on a blanket over coffee before the day started. This month we got to love on orphans and kids who absolutely broke and stole my heart, we got to visit patients at the hospital and AIDS/HIV patients at the hospice center–and spend a week doing all of it and more with our moms and dads for the Parent Vision Trip. I’ll always remember the Kumahlo family who hosted our team in their incredible home, a place we called “The Refuge,”…because that’s exactly what it felt like. 

Month 9

Month 9. Botswana. 

Before this month began, I asked God to rock me more the last three months of the Race than he did the first eight. It’s funny…because God answers prayers, and he did exactly that with this one. In Botswana, I was broken over the poverty in the little town we lived in, and the struggles of having our physical limits tested, all while adjusting to a new team…but the word God gave me by the end of that month was HOPE.

In the midst of the poverty, I saw riches in the eternal joy the village people have in Christ; in the midst of struggling with our living conditions, I saw God bond me and the five women on my new team in a unique way that compelled us to rely on God and one another. In brokenness there is beauty, especially when it draws you closer to Jesus. There is always hope with God. Because like our Pastor in Ukraine told me last week, “When you don’t understand God’s hand, trust his heart.” Month 9: Hope.

 

Month 10

ALBANIA//ABANDONMENT & ABIDE. Month 10.

Albania was a season of letting go of control and experiencing the joy that comes when the Holy Spirit orders your steps. Our team had one task: discover new ministries around the country that World Racers can serve at in the future. We had no plan, no idea what would happen. Just like our “faith day” that led us to meeting new friends and going to the top of a castle, we asked God, “which way?” every time we came to a decision. I learned to let him lead. And He led us to the most amazing places.

My favorite of which was Korcë where I met this sweet friend, Bido, at a Christian senior-care center on top of a mountain that looked like heaven on earth. This man personified joy. That’s my other word for this month, JOY, the true kind, the kind that comes from abiding in Christ. Albania: my favorite month of the World Race.

 

 

AND FINALLY….

Month 11

UKRAINE//DELIGHT. MONTH 11. The month where everything came full circle.

The first half of the Race, God spoke to me through little girls, and about how I have the heart of one. The second half of the Race God spoke to me about being a woman of God who is “clothed in strength and dignity and laughs without fear of the future.” Month 2 He gave me little Risa, Month 11 He gave me Bria Blessing, a woman of God who radiates his glory and delights in being Jesus’ beloved. I am so thankful to have lived and served this month with this sweet friend and sister of mine in Lviv; to be encouraged by her heart, and strengthened for the journey back home; to feel what it means to delight in the Lord.

And this month, Jesus gave me daises. 

All the time. 

Daises. Daises. Daises. 

Daises on my bus seat. Daises on my pillow. Daises on my kitchen chair. 

These pictures, I delight in because one day it happened right in the middle of doing one of my video diaries for the World Race Doc Project!

I’m holding my last bouquet, saying how much it means to me, when Erica, my amazing teammate, comes back from a run, runs up to me and puts a new bouquet of daises in my hands right then and there!

Delight. Delight. Delight. The rest of my life. Delight.

Delight.

Delight. 

Delight.