Race Across the World

I wonder if any of you have been watching the TV show “Race across the World” in the last few weeks. It’s a fascinating show. It features 5 couples from the UK racing (in this season across Canada) for £20,000 worth of prize money. Except what makes this race special is the competitors aren’t allowed any phones or any plane flights, and their budget is limited to cost of the equivalent airfare, and of course they have TV cameras following their every move.

What I like about it is that not only do you travel with the couples across the beautiful scenery of Canada, but also you travel on a bit of their life story as well. There’s a pair of brothers who never got on as kids, who lost their dad and are trying to pick up the pieces of their relationship. There’s two dad-daughter couples battling through the highs and lows of a race together. But the couple whose story was perhaps the most moving was married couple Zeinib and Mobeen, medics from Manchester who for years have been longing to have children.

As the race goes on they open up to those they meet, about their struggle to conceive. And then on the final leg of the journey, a man called Brent gives them a lift to the final checkpoint. And he shares something that he didn’t need to share, nor could he have foreseen what an impact it would have had on his passengers. He explains that he was adopted. “Quite honestly I thought was special, the coolest kid”. In a wonderfully encouraging and positive way, he commends to them the privilege of being adopted, and they start to think about whether this is something that they could do.

Why do I share this story? Partly because of how beautifully Brent describes the love of his adoptive parents, but also because adoption is actually one of the pictures that the Bible paints to describe what it’s like to be a Christian. The love God has for you is so strong that he wants to be there for you all your life, and have you call him Father.

On that road through Nova Scotia on the Race across the World, stranger Brent says to Zeinib and Mobeen “Adoption really is the greatest expression of love you can think of”. Get in touch if we can help you find out more about how much God loves you.

Charlie Newcombe, 17/05/2023