Hey, y'all, my name's Josiah Stilwell and I will be participating in the World Race Route 2 in January 2020. First off I wanna tell y'all a little about myself and explain why I've decided to travel to eleven different countries in eleven months doing missions work.

I was raised in a Christian home by two parents who absolutely love the Lord. Going to church three times a week has been the norm for most of my life. I and my two brothers and two sisters were all homeschooled from kindergarten to high school graduation.

I'm currently working in the meat market in a local grocery store and I genuinely love my job, but realistically I don't see myself being able to make a career out of this. I've been praying for several months for God to provide me with a new situation, and as His answer took longer and longer to come I eventually decided that maybe the best place I could glorify Him was where I was at. So I changed the prayer from, "Give me a better job" to "Show me where I can be used."

I prayed this for the first time at the job I was wanting to leave, and within an hour the idea of missions popped into my mind. I didn't really think anything of it, but decided when I got home I'd search the internet and see if this was a theoretical option for me.

The World Race was one of the first things I saw, and immediately I fell in love with it. At first I thought that in a perfect world that I didn't live in maybe I could be part of it, but I just couldn't stop researching it and finding new and exciting stuff about this strange thing.

I started feeling anxious and restless having not applied. I mentioned it to my parents and immediately they were on board with it. I told my sister about it and before I even said that I was interested in becoming part of it she said, "Wow, you'd be great at something like that!"

So I applied, and felt relaxed for the first time since I'd heard about WR.

Next post I plan on telling y'all more about myself, give you a chance to get to know me, and then start sharing my progress in fundraising and what the Lord is using WR to teach me and make me grow. Until then, God bless!

- Josiah Stilwell