Why I’m going on the World Race

Hello, 

My name is Aaron Brandenburg, and I am a participant in the January 2025 World Race  Expedition. I figured for my first blog I’d just write about why I’m going on the race, which is probably a standard maneuver. 

I graduated from Ohio University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 2022. Due to a variety of reasons (some totally within my control, some outside of my control), I pretty much had to take the first writing job I was offered out of college. I wound up getting a job at a healthcare staffing company where I would try and convince different Government agencies to get the company I was working for business by writing proposals, as well as other administration responsibilities. It was a pretty good first job overall, but it was the type of job where you would just sit at a desk and write for 45-50 hours per week. I went to a journalism school not because I was in love with writing, but because I wanted to help people by distributing accurate information. I started looking for a different job that would be more people based than what I was doing. 

While I was looking for a different job, I also made a lot of other dramatic changes to my life. I had gotten into a pretty harmful pattern of not interacting with anyone and just drinking by myself on weekends, not accomplishing anything. I decided to start going back to church, volunteering at a nonprofit, working out, and no longer drinking alone. The job search wasn’t going great because I was getting rejected from jobs that I wanted and rejecting jobs after getting more information about them. 

The final domino to fall was I had decided to read the Bible cover to cover. I had actually read a kid’s Bible in a year as a kid as a New Year’s resolution that I actually accomplished, and I had a religious education, however, I had never thought about the Bible stories in an intellectual way. I actually loved breaking down stories in my free time, so I decided to try and do the same thing. 

That was the point where I became significantly more religious.  

Originally I thought about going back to college to get a master’s degree in theology. But honestly, I kept getting rejected from jobs that I wanted because I didn’t have experience working with people. I figured going on a mission would be a very interesting experience, and I was in an optimal position to do so. From there, I went with the one that sounded the coolest. So that’s why I’m here. 

My future plans after the trip will be to try and get a job in one of two directions, either in a nonprofit space helping people, or with a religious media organization given my journalism background. 

So there you go. Thanks for reading and for any prayers provided regarding this trip. I am very much looking forward to it.