My World Race mission trip.

Seaneh

Ok guys, I ran this by a mod and they said it was fine for me to start this thread.

In May I will be leaving Ireland for a year to go on a 11 country mission called The World Race.

The World Race is a 11 month, 11 country missions trip organised by Adventures in Missions, a not for profit organisation founded by Seth Barnes in his garage over 20 years ago which has since sent over 80,000 young people around the world sharing God's message and now has permanent ministries all around the world including their African H.Q. in Swaziland where they feed up to 6000 Orphans per day.

During the Race, People between the age of 21 and 35 give a year of their life to go to the poorest parts of the world and share God's love in a real and tangible way with the people who need it most.

Racers survive on a budget of $1.25 (€0.91c) per day, live out of a 44lb (20kg) back pack and a tent while partnering with existing missionaries, ministries and charities around the world.

By preforming acts of service towards "the least of these" we will be sharing God's message with people who need God's hope and love more than we could possible understand.

Whether it's building a schoolhouse in Malawi, staffing an orphanage in Swaziland, helping set up a brick baking factory to provide employment in an Internally Displaced Peoples camp in Kenya, providing remedial education and counselling to former child soldiers with Child Voice International in Uganda, providing safe houses for victims of human trafficking in Eastern Europe and South East Asia or helping young men and women in Thailand exit the sex trade we believe these acts of service are what we are called to do by Jesus and we believe that we are bringing God's Kingdom to them and as such changing their lives for the better.

James 1:27 says "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction" and that is what we strive to do.


As you may well know missions trips don't come for free, international flights cost money, food costs money, building supplies cost money, and so on. So over the next few months I will be running a series of events to help raise my share of the money needed for my squad. I will also be speaking at a number of churches around the country sharing my mission and letting people know how they can get involved.

If you are a member of a church and think that maybe you would like to invite me to come visit and share about mission or you would like to get involved yourself, you can send me a private message here and I will get back to you right away.

To find out more about The World Race, Adventures in Missions and its founder Seth Barnes, you can visit the links below.

http://www.theworldrace.org/
http://www.adventures.org/
http://www.sethbarnes.com/


To find out more about my specific mission, you can visit my personal blog at the following link.

http://seankelly.theworldrace.org/

thanks for taking the time to read my thread and I look forward to hearing from some of you soon.


Seán.

Fanny Cradock

Wow! Godspeed, Sean.

Plowman

This post has been deleted.

zoomtard

Legendary. I echo Fanny's sentiments.

Fanny Cradock

I figure I might be finished "Who is Sean Kelly?" in about 11 months.

Good read so far!

Seaneh

Seeing as the superbowl is on TV right now I thought this might be of interest to a few of you.

A few months ago several NFL players visited a few AIM funded and run Care Points in Swaziland and helped World Racers and AIM's staff provide basic care for orphaned children there.

Just click below to watch!

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-total-access/09000d5d818cef1b/Saving-Swaziland

Seaneh

Ok, so I read a lot of other World Racers blogs, to give me an idea of what to expect and for encouragement and so on. While doing so today I came across a blog entry by a girl called Katie Benson from Atlanta Georgia, she is currently in Cambodia and is part of a specialist 5 month world race squad which works entirely in the realm of Human Trafficking prevention and rescue.

The blog post I am going to link to is just such a beautiful story and it highlights the type of real, tangible, life changing work world racers do all across the world every day, helping people to be more than victims of their circumstances.

Katie and her team mates, while in Cambodia met a Vietnamese woman called Huynh and her 8 month old daughter Sat Long.

this is their story.
Taken from Katie's personal blog, which you can read here.

KatieBenson.theworldrace.org wrote:

She is trapped.

Why is she trapped? Because she has to give her 8 month old daughter for adoption.

Why does she feel like she has to give her daughter up? Because she was kicked out of her house earlier this afternoon.

Why was she kicked out of her house earlier this afternoon? Because her landlord in the slums told her to sell the child to him for $1,000 US Dollars. So he in turn could sell the child for sexual exploitation. When he found out she would not sell her baby to him, he kicked her out.

Why is she living in the slums? Because she is selling her body and does not make enough money to support herself. Her ex-husband kicked her out when she first had his child, the one she is now holding in her arms.

Why did she marry that man in the first place? Because she was a sex worker when she moved from Vietnam to Cambodia and wanted out. But now she is back in the cycle because she doesn't even know how to read Khmer and cannot get a job anywhere else, but just to sell her body.

She is trapped.

Friday afternoon.
I was asking these questions to my translator, every question carrying me deeper into a story about a woman and a precious child I had just met in the nurses' office. Their names: Huynh and Sat Long. Huynh is asking for the name of an adoption agency so she may hand her child off and move back to Vietnam; she is also asking for a bus ticket to get there. She cannot afford Sat Long. She cannot even afford her bus ticket to Vietnam.

She is trapped.

I am screaming out to God in my heart, "There have got to be more options than this!!! I know that I may be from the United States, and dream too big, but, oh my gosh. There has got to be a way she can have a job with dignity, keep Sat Long and live a life worth living! Dear God, please HELP."

My team is heartbroken at the news about this woman and baby. We want to help out the best we can. We pray with her and even offer to pay her bus ticket once we know her baby is safe in the adoption agency's arms.

I walk away with the same "American Dream" prayer of, "God, I want her to have it all. A bus ticket is not the answer for her, please, oh please, give me an answer."

Saturday.
The girls on my team are all out eating at a place called Daughter's of Cambodia. It is a ministry in the heart of Phenom Penh and it helps girls that want to get out of the sex trade. 98% of the women that go to work at Daughter's never go back into the sex trade. They have a spa, cafe and shop where the girls can work to earn a living. This ministry also offers counseling, free childcare for the working mother, and even doctor visits.

We are sitting around the calm atmosphere of the cafe, talking and giggling, and I am staring off, thinking of Huynh and Sat Long. I shock myself out of day-dreaming and grab Kristen's arm right next to mine and say, "She can work here, this woman can work at Daughter's!" All of us get excited as we think about how amazing it could be if Huynh could really, in fact, have it all.

Monday morning.
Kristen and I walk in to ministry and Huynh is in the nursery room with her daughter. The adoption agency, we found out, did not go through. We present the information to her about Daughter's and what they do. For the first time, I see Huynh smile. We have no idea where to start off, we know that the main offices are not located where the cafe, spa and shop are, but we decide to go there.

So with translator and baby in tow, we get in a tuk tuk and head to Daughter's. Once there, Kristen is able to contact the Director on her cell phone. Kristen explains Hunyh's story and the Director tells her, "Oh my goodness, this does sound desperate, where is this woman? Can you get in touch with her? Can you bring her to the office now?!" Kristen's response is, "We have her in the tuk tuk and we're on our way now." "Yes, yes, bring her now!"

On the way there we all cannot stop smiling. Huynh even mentions to Kristen and me that she can see the glory of God all around us. This is coming from a woman who at the time, was wearing a red Buddhist bracelet.

We all go in and Huynh is interviewed and accepted and will start work tomorrow. Her baby will be in the daycare. She will have a house close to work. She will make a fair wage. She will have a job with dignity, and keep her child. This is Divine.

On the way back home, Huynh is holding her sleeping baby. She looks over at Kristen and me and says, "I had a dream that I had a little house where my baby and I lived and I had a job I had no shame in. Today, you made my dreams come true. I am so thankful."

As it turns out, baby Sat Long's name means "Optimistic." One translation states, the doctrine that this is the best of all possible worlds. And I truly believe with all of my heart, that this is the best possible outcome in Huynh and Sat Long's world.

I just think it's important to share stories like these.

Seaneh

So in exactly 3 weeks I will have landed in Atlanta for the first part of my mission, a 10 day training camp with Adventure in Missions in Northern Georgia where we will be preped for what we will experience on the field.

Now more than ever people have been asking me why I am doing this, why I'd do something so extreme.

I've really struggled to put into words exactly what I feel and why I am doing this.

A poet called Michael Perez, a fellow world racer from a different squad, wrote this poem and AIM made a video of Michael reciting it.

It pretty much sums up everything I've felt and couldn't vocalise.

I just wanted to share it with you all, because I feel it applies to all Christians, not just those of us who feel called to the missions field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j29LaRiE4RA

Donatello

I'd love to do something exciting like that. Unfortunately, due to a health issue, I cannot stray too far from Western medicare!

I wish thee well with thy trip!