K Squad. Doc Squad. Diva Squad.
These are all the names we’ve been given. All the things that have tried to put a name and definition to a group of people who are trying to live out the Kingdom. K Squad. “K” for “Kingdom”. We let that name follow us to 11 countries. Along with cameras, the endless hours of footage and video diaries pieced together so that we could share the heart of Jesus with more than just the minute number of people we met around the world but so we could share the heart of Jesus with THE WHOLE WORLD!!
The World Race came to an end and the 48 members of K Squad went their separate ways, into the endless abyss of a world we used to call home. To a house that was no longer familiar. To a family that doesn’t even recognize us. To a town full of people who are so busy looking at their phones they forget to see the beauty of the person standing next to them. To a place where the state of your hair is more important than the state of your heart. We were thrown into the middle of a raging Sea and we couldn’t find our way out so we just kept trying to swim through it, looking for something familiar, any hint of the land that must be near.
But in the distance we say a small light, a trickle of hope. A Searchlight! Trying to find us and bring us back. So we swam towards it and we saw in the distance a land from our past, a place that was both strange and recognizable. The name of this land was Gainesville, Georgia!
Project Searchlight was the refuge we found. A five day conference that drew us out of the water with loving hands and said “You’re safe now. It’s okay. The things you experienced, the things you feel, it’s all good and it’s all okay. You are not alone.” Then magically they started drawing our friends out of the water as well, the ones we had spent a year with. The ones we consider family after spending 24 hours 7 days a week in community with them for 11 months straight. They are the ones who know us and understand us, now everything is going to be okay.
So began five days of insane beautiful worship, session that fueled a passion, small groups that reminded us that Jesus is still there, he was there before and he will always be there!!! Opportunities for a new life or job or calling were presented and maybe our hearts started beating fast as we realized what God was calling us to next. But more than anything they reassured us that it’s okay if we don’t know what is coming next because God has it all figured out and we just need to be reminded of that!
I stood in the training center watching my squad, K Squad, the Doc Squad, the Diva Squad worshipping and speaking words of encouragement to not just each other but to the other squads in the room, or singing louder than they have ever sung, or worshipping in a crazy wild way by jumping or dancing or swinging their arms or just bowing down. And as I looked at them all I was overwhelmed with a feeling of pride and power! Every single one of my brothers and sisters on K Squad is a leader whether they know it or not! They all have a power that resides inside of them, and they are going to use that power to change the world!!! Jesus we are going to change the world!!! I really truly believed that for the first time!
Then I stopped just looking at the ones I knew but looked at the others around the room the people who also traveled to 11 countries in 11 months, who also lived out the Kingdom, who also love the same Jesus I do! And I understood then that K Squad isn’t special! Yes I know more about the power that K Squad has because I lived and breathed it, but every single person in that room, all 100 something of them have the same power inside of them and they are also going to change the world!!!
God is infinitely bigger than we give him credit for! He is alive and well among the earth today, and I know the full potential of that knowledge now!!! Sometimes you don’t know what you have til it’s gone. I had three weeks of loneliness of going without my friends and in that time my heart ached for them and I realized what I had those 11 months in those people. Project Searchlight brought us back together so that we could understand that it was real, everything we experienced, everyone we met, and that this year God imparted a great and amazing gift upon all of us, he has called us to be his hands and feet in EVERY situation we are in.
So as we came into Project Searchlight we were just H, I, J, K, and L Squad, looking for a chance to be reunited with our friends. But we left as CHILDREN OF GOD equipped and ready to spread the KINGDOM to the NATIONS!!!!
