HE GIVES YOU A NEW BROTHER AND FOUR NEW SISTERS!!!
Sorry to be flooding all of you with posts but I’ve found myself with a little bit of time these last couple days and there are so many things I’ve been meaning to blog about!
OK I have to keep myself from trying to “blurb� about anything here before we get this post going or I will, as we have seen happen before, lose myself in the “blurb� and find myself unable to continue on with my original intent. Thus, I shall jump right into it!! It’s time to introduce all of you to my WR TEAM!!
This is a very exciting blog post guys. I don’t even think you realize the magnitude. These 5 people will be my FAMILY for this trip that I am going on. I literally won’t be able to get away from them and there’s no way I’m letting them get away from me. We WILL be together and God’s promise to us is that it is a SWEET FRAGRANCE to Him when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity! That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to worship God through loving each other and living out true community and it’s going to be awesome.
During training camp Jesus took me through the process of showing me that He is calling me to leadership on my Race. This process and the conversations that we had could be 2 blog posts in and of themselves but I’ll just say that it was an incredibly humbling experience to see SO MANY gifted leaders on our world race squad and then find myself being given the opportunity to be a team leader for this time.
I think that this opportunity to learn and grow in leadership is an absolute gift from Jesus to me and it is one that I did not deserve but accept wholeheartedly. Jesus has shown me this past week as I have processed this role that I have been given, that men generally respond in one of two ways when given leadership responsibility that they did not deserve. We either tell ourselves that if it was given to us, well then we must have deserved it (thus stepping into an attitude of pride), or we can maintain the attitude of humility and realize that the only way to be the leader we’re called to be is through letting Jesus be the true leader.
I don’t fully know how to do that but my prayer for myself throughout this year is that I would always remain a humble leader for as long as I am given that responsibility. If you wouldn’t mind praying that over me as well, I would GREATLY appreciate having the power of your prayers working in my life as well.
OK!! Now to my team.
First of all, I would like to introduce you to Mister WES WEBB!!
Wes is the other man on my team with me and I tell you what; homeboy is packin’ some serious power through the Holy Spirit. Wes is from <insert name of small town here>, Georgia. He’s pretty chill (and when I say “pretty chill�, I really mean “VERY chill�) and real easy-going which just makes me want to cry for joy. The dude has some crazy stories though that will make your jaw drop followed by your whole body erupting in laughter. I also see a really strong gifting in Wes of just fierce integrity. I believe strongly in the power of speaking out the Truth over people, situations, and struggles; and there is something especially powerful about a man of HONESTY and INTEGRITY speaking Truth. I’m super pumped to see this power unleashed over and around my life and our team. I feel like going through this time with Wes is going to teach me a lot about being a man.
Up next is the ever-lovely Miss MARISSA DALE.
As she would tell you herself, she lives in Colorado but is truly a Delawarean (I looked up the proper term for a person from Delaware). Things that are awesome about Marissa that I can see right off the bat: She’s an outdoorsy girl with an adventurous heart. I feel like she’s going to help our team with making some really ridiculous memories. Secondly, even just hearing her tell me about her family once, I can tell that she is CRAZY about them. She loves them all fiercely and truly sees the value of the gift that God has given her in them. I am so excited to get to be a new part of her family! Two giftings that I see in Marissa immediately are 1. A gift of empathy and advice that is combined with a gift of listening. When you’re talking to Marissa, she is completely focused, listening, and processing what you’re saying the whole time you’re talking. I can just see that this woman of God has a gift of wisdom and I think she’s going to be ready to pour it out on our team. 2. The second thing that I see in Marissa is a spirit of openness. Sometimes I struggle with needing to put my own thought into a course of action after I receive the Lord’s leading whereas I feel like she has a gift of being able to just take what the Lord throws at her and say, “OK Jesus. I’m in.� I saw this especially when I asked her to be the Financial Leader for our team. I think that the most powerful part of this is that her willingness to act when God tells her to act and go where Jesus tells her to go manifests itself through an attitude of “Jesus, I will do anything.� I’m PUMPED to see where the openness of that attitude sends her and our whole team over the next year!
Along came Miss KACIE LYNN LESTER.
Kacie was a part of the squad I originally signed up for back in January and also switched over to the new squad with me about a month ago when we were asked to. Thus, Kacie and I have been connecting for months and months now. Two things I really love about Kacie Lester: 1. This girl is SARCASTIC to the max and pretty much hilarious in the process. I love and appreciate sarcasm so much and it’s just absolutely going to be wonderful to hang out with such a witty girl for the year. 2. Some people have a laugh where you hear it and can’t help but laugh along. The way that Kacie’s laugh sounds is perfectly fine and dandy, but it’s not the sound that blows you away. It’s the look of absolute joy that takes over her countenance that makes you want to laugh your head off even if you didn’t hear the joke. Her laugh exudes joy and it’s beautiful. Ok, a couple things that I see and am excited about in Kacie. Kacie is a VERY honest person; but it’s more than that. Kacie is honest AND OPEN. This is powerful people listen up. It’s the difference between someone whose words are True when spoken and a person who sees a Truth and instinctively speaks it. Kacie is active about speaking Truth over people and I have already seen it be powerful in the lives of myself and our other teammates as well as our whole squad. AAAHH it’s going to be so awesome to see it be POWERFUL AMONG THE NATIONS!! The second thing that I see and love in Kacie is her tender spirit. I know she might laugh at the thought of her being “tender� but she really is a complete sweetheart. I love the way that she likes being my little sister. I am excited to be able to witness the power of the Lord working through her life as this spirit of tenderness before Him manifests itself over the coming months.
Ladies and Gents, I have the pleasure of introducing you to Miss KAYLYNN LOVE!!
Guys, there is something about seeing God moving in power in someone’s life that gets you more excited than anything else to see Him move in their life again and again. I feel like God really used training camp in a powerful way to start really pulling Kaylynn into His LOVE and it got me SO pumped up to see the continuation and results of her moving to a more and more intimate place with Jesus over the course of our trip. In praying for my team over the past week and a half or so, I have been floored by the calling that Jesus has on Kaylynn’s life to really understand the love of our father and to POUR THAT LOVE OUT on His people! I know it’s going to be powerful on our team. I’m so excited to get to know Kaylynn so much better on our trip and I’m pumped to have her as my new SISTER!! Also, she is responsible for the team picture that you saw at the top of this post and I feel like I can speak for the whole team in saying that for that, we are VERY VERY thankful because the PICTURE. IS. AWESOME.
The last of my lovely ladies that I have the joy of introducing is Miss STEPHANIE MAY.
She is from Colorado but is living in LA right now. I hadn’t even talked to Stephanie before Jesus gifted her to our team family. Needless to say, I was a little surprised to be put with someone I hadn’t even talked to, but I think it just speaks volumes to how determined our AIM leadership was to seek the Lord when making teams because she was exactly what we needed to complete our little family. Stephanie connects with people really well. She’s good at asking questions and drawing people out of whatever shell they are hiding in. A couple things that I’ve been getting excited about as I have been praying for her are that 1. As she becomes more and more intimate with Jesus, I think Jesus is going to use her natural gift of connecting with people to really introduce a connection between people and Jesus. Jesus wants to use her to connect with His sons and daughters and I think her heart is so open to being used that it’s going to literally rock the world. 2. Kind of on the same lines, this girl is just SALTY. Salt brings out all the flavors in food and I just see a really strong gifting in Stephanie to be able to really draw out people’s hearts. I think she’s going to find that people are going to open up to her and Jesus is going to use her to expose the junk in people as well as exposing the true desires of their hearts that have been placed there by Jesus. How excited am I to be able to see that happening!? So excited.
Guys, this is my team. On top of all the awesome stuff that God is doing in all of our hearts, I am just so thankful that this is a group of FUN PEOPLE!! We’re going to have so many crazy adventures and just so much RICH, JOYFUL fun. I am so excited guys. Sorry that this blog post ended up being really long but honestly, I challenge you to get to know these people and then keep a blog post about them short. You just can’t do it!!
Oh yeah, the reason they’re all in striped shirts at the top is because our team name is TEAM WALDO!! I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with it as a team name as we go around the world and are able to title blog posts “Where’s WALDO?� over and over again. Also, I’m hoping we get some sick pictures of us in red and white striped shirts around the world. But even more than it being a fun and clever name, it is an acronym that states who we want to be as a team. The acronym is:
Witnesses
Annointed,
Living
Discipleship
Out
How sick is this year going to be? So sick. Love you guys.
