Ten Ways My One-Year Journey Still Impacts Me Today 

It’s been almost two years since I stepped off a plane and came home from my Global Challenge One-Year Journey. Two years since the adventure ended…or so I thought. Because the funny thing about discipleship is that the fruit doesn’t always show up immediately. Sometimes it takes months. Sometimes years. Sometimes you only realise you’ve changed when life throws something at you that would’ve flattened the old version of you.

So for the parents wondering whether to send their kids, the students considering applying, or anyone asking, “What does a One-Year Journey actually produce in you?” Here’s my answer. I’m a list girl, so let’s keep it simple. Ten things.

One: Resilience 

Another word for this is toughness. I know. Probably not the answer you were hoping for. But resilience is a game-changer in this grand quest we call life. Global Challenge toughened me up, and trust me, it was needed. Now, when I’m faced with challenges—emotional, physical, spiritual—I often find myself thinking, ‘I can do this because I’ve done harder things’. My mental game is stronger. My self-talk is healthier. I’ve been in the trenches before and came out the other side. Actually, scratch that. We didn’t just come out okay. We came out praising; more aware of the God who led us through it. Because of that, I can handle more pressure, higher stakes, and bigger challenges than I could before. That’s a massive win.

Two: Empathy for the Poor

Global Challenge exposes you to the lost, the weary, and the overlooked. And sometimes, if I’m honest, you don’t just meet them. You become them.

You become the young person living off a budget with no savings account to fall back on. The backpacker trying to navigate a foreign country with no map and no common language. Sometimes during a Travel Challenge, you have no clue where you’re sleeping that night and there were moments when we genuinely had to trust God for our next meal. 

Something happens when life gets stripped down like that.

You begin to understand a little more of what it feels like to live without guarantees. To wonder how tomorrow is going to work out. To depend on the kindness of strangers. Does that mean I suddenly became an expert at loving the poor? Not even close. Sometimes I still freeze when someone living on the street asks me for money. Sometimes I still don’t know what the right response is. But I have something now that I didn’t have before. Empathy. Understanding. And that’s a gift. 

Three: A Love for Adventure

Not the Instagram kind. The real kind. The kind where everything goes wrong and nobody knows how to fix it. The kind where you have to pull together every ounce of creativity, faith, and problem-solving you can find. The kind where the girl who’s never ridden a horse ends up galloping down the side of a volcano in the rain in Guatemala. Where the guy who’s never left his country finds himself swinging on vines in the Amazon. Or where the girl who’s never surfed before ends up riding waves in Costa Rica, drinking coconuts off the tree, and sharing the Gospel with her instructor (all true stories). 

Global gave me space to discover adventure in the raw, untamed corners of life. In bus stations, the hills of Peru, alleyways in Rio, or in the whale-shark oceans of Honduras. 

Adventure doesn’t need a price tag. It’s a posture. It’s the way you respond when you’ve missed your bus stop, left a team member behind on a train, or somehow need to make dinner out of eggs, rice, beans, and peanut butter.

Adventure is the way we seek Jesus when we don’t try to box him in. And honestly? That’s when life starts getting interesting.

Four: A Bolder Ability to Share the Gospel

The other day, I was sitting on a bench at the beach. God prompted me to talk to a woman nearby. She looked intimidating. I was quite happy sitting five metres away. But eventually I walked over and asked her, “Has anyone ever shared the Gospel with you?” And then something happened. I had the words. Not perfect words. But better words than I used to have.

I could explain the Good News clearly, in under three minutes. I could talk about repentance, confession, freedom, and grace in a way that made sense. 

Global put me in situations where I realised how much I didn’t know how to communicate. And because of that, I started looking for practical tools to help me explain what I believe. Turns out that’s a useful skill when God asks you to talk to strangers.

And that woman at the beach? She’s now exploring church and believes God speaks to her. Thank You, Jesus! 

Five: A Deeper Appreciation for Community

We can’t do life alone and we’re not supposed to. Global reminded me of that. We’re better together. We need the quiet bookworms. We need the singers. The comedians. The deep thinkers. The organisers. The dreamers. And the people who somehow know how to fix everything.

Why? Because God uses all of it. Every personality. Every gift. Every strange little interest.

My love for books and writing became a bridge to connect with fellow book-lovers in Chile and Paraguay. Conversations that started with novels by Francine Rivers often ended with deeper conversations about faith. The same was true for the singers, the joke-makers, the surfers. God uses all of it.

Community taught me that the things that make us different are often the very things God uses to reach people we could never reach on our own.

Six: I Became a Better Public Speaker 

Throw me into a room full of kids now and I’ll survive. Maybe even thrive. At the very least, I won’t panic quite as quickly. Why? Because Global gave me plenty of opportunities to stand in front of people and speak. Sometimes I did it well. Sometimes I didn’t. But here’s what I learned: Catastrophe doesn’t erupt when you fail.

I spoke on topics like identity, God as a Father, and His heart for the Church. As a twenty-year-old. To actual audiences. Now, would I listen back to those messages today and think they were brilliant? Probably not. But I did it. And God used it to reach people. Now I know I can do it again. And that’s a confidence I didn’t have before.

Seven: I Have Skills To Connect Across Cultures

We live in a world where cultures are colliding every day. Travel is more accessible. The internet has brought the world to our fingertips. We interact with people from different backgrounds, languages, and worldviews more than ever before. And yet, connecting across cultures isn’t always easy.

Global exposed me to dozens of cultures over eight months. Not from a textbook. Not from a documentary. In real life. And without the comfort of going home when things got difficult.

I learned how to listen before speaking. How to adapt. How to ask questions. How to laugh at myself when I accidentally broke a cultural norm and had no idea what I’d done wrong. I learned that what feels normal to me isn’t normal everywhere else. And that’s a valuable lesson.

The ability to communicate across cultures, adapt to unfamiliar environments, and build relationships with people who are different from you is something that will serve me for the rest of my life. Some lessons can only be learned in the field. This is one of them.

Eight: I Don’t Fear Hunger, Being Cold, or Living With Less

That probably sounds like a strange thing to celebrate. But it’s true. Global taught me how little I actually need.

Five shirts. Three pairs of pants. Two dresses. A skirt. A backpack. A tent. Turns out that’s enough.

When I got home, one of the first things I did was grab a black bag and start getting rid of clothes. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. Months later, my teammates started telling me they had done exactly the same thing. Without discussing it, decluttering had become instinct.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy beautiful things. I like good clothes. Art. Books. Photos on the wall. But those things no longer feel essential. They’re gifts. Plain and simple. And there’s freedom in that.

Nine: I Have a Richer History of God’s Faithfulness

Global Challenge is radical. I’ll just say it. Where else do you end up praying for people in the streets of Brazil and watching God heal backs, legs, and feet? Where else do you find yourself sharing the Gospel in slums one day and speaking on television a few days later? As a nineteen year old. As someone who’s still figuring out life.

Now, I’m not saying Global is somehow more special than every other discipleship program. It’s not. Global is simply a wineskin. A space. An environment. But it creates opportunities to step out in faith that many of us would never encounter otherwise. And when you step out, God shows up.

The miracles weren’t the point. Jesus was. But those moments became markers in my journey. Moments I can look back on and say, “God was faithful there.” And because He was faithful then, I can trust Him now. Now, when finances are tight. When someone I love needs healing. When the future feels uncertain. I draw on that history. I remember. And remembering changes a lot.

Ten: My Perspective on Life Is Bigger

I care more about eternity now. That’s probably the simplest way to put it. Not because I’ve become some super-spiritual person who floats through life unaffected by ordinary problems. Trust me, that’s not the case. The price of petrol still stresses me out. Finding a new dentist after moving towns still feels unnecessarily complicated. I still forget birthdays. I mess up friendships. I don’t say “I love you” often enough. I’m still very much a work in progress. But Global helped wake me up.

It reminded me how short life is. How much is at stake. How much bigger God’s story is than my own comfort. It reminded me why I’m alive. Who I’m living for. And where I fit into the picture. That’s no small thing. In fact, it’s probably one of the greatest gifts the year gave me.

That perspective has shaped major decisions in my life. It’s part of the reason I packed up my life, moved nine hours away from home, and now work for a missions organisation. Most twenty-three-year-olds don’t do that. But that’s what happens when Jesus changes the way you see the world.

And just to be clear, I’m not offering a formula here. Not everyone who does Global ends up working in missions. Some become teachers. Some accountants. Others become business owners, parents, or pastors. The point isn’t where you end up. The point is that you carry a different perspective into whatever God calls you to. And that changes everything.

That’s just ten things. 

Trust me, there are more. Some of the fruit is practical. Some of it is spiritual. Some of it I’m still discovering. Some of it was me processing hard moments that hurt. This list is not exhaustive. But it’s a reason enough for me to believe that Global changed me. Deeply. 

So to the parents wondering whether Global Challenge is worth it, I understand the hesitation. Sending your child across the world isn’t a small thing. But here’s what I’ve learned: God cares more about us kids on the field than you do. 

He meets us in bus stations and airports. In foreign cities and unfamiliar cultures. In moments of uncertainty, and adventure. He protects us. He teaches us courage. He grows our compassion. He deepens our faith. He broadens our perspective. And somewhere along the way, He changes us.

Global Challenge isn’t easy. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But two years later, I’m still living off the fruit of that year. So was it worth it? That’s a good question. 

I’ll let you decide.