Even though we have been in Nepal now for about two weeks, it still throws me off to hear monkeys in the early mornings instead of dogs or chickens.
We landed in Kathmandu, Nepal on October 25th, and even though the entire squad was excited to be in a new country, especially as we drove through the backpacking district of Thamel, there was a sense of “everything is about to change.” We spent 3 days with the teams that we had been split up into back at training camp in May, knowing that by the end of the five day debrief, we would all be with new people on new teams.
At each debreif, the teams have team debriefs with the squad leaders, coaches, and mentors. I want to let you guys in on a not-so-secret secret, people are messy, not in like hygenic ways, but when you put people together, they are bound to butt heads becasue of opinions and personalities. I remember month 1 as a team was hard and rough and our first debrief was anything else besides roses and unicorn dust, it was more like unicorn fart dust. But at the end of month 4, it was clear that we were not the same team that we were back in South Africa. As we walked out of that meeting, all I could think was how grateful I was that we all got to see the fruit of that team and of our labor within each other at the end of the four months we spent together as opposed to somewhere down the road in the future. I am so grateful for each of my old teammates Ryan, Sweet Baby Girl Chach, Lex, Eric, and Burgess. I am so thankful for what they taught me and how they loved and looked after me. I am still rooting for them and the work that God does through them and with them, man it’s going to be so rad.
But it’s a new chapter of the race, and with that I give you The Lumes.
The Lumes: Kelly, Christi, Chantai, Melissa, Enrica, and myself. For our team name we were playing around with words that mean light because that is what we are called to be in this world, the light. We ended up with the word lumin which is a unit of light and when you add more to said solo unit, the brightness of the light grows. These women are lovely, fierce warriors of Chirst’s and I’m stoked to be living life along side of each of them in this new chapter.
