What exactly is my job? - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

So I stole this blog from Noe Rivera, my co-squad leader, because it sums up what we do and our hearts behind it….and he probably did a better job at it than I could have 🙂 Caution: it is longer than my normal blogs though haha

WHAT EXACTLY IS MY JOB?

Great question!

Well….let me give you a picture into “DEBRIEF” and this will give you a peak into one of the main parts of the job.

Definition of DEBRIEF = According to Hollis Johnson my co-leader across the table right now …..A TIME TO REST, REFLECT, AND CRY. 🙂

More formally, Debrief is a set apart time that the entire squad 39 members, comes together in one location and we have worship times, turn in finance receipts, catch up over coffee, and most importantly check the health, safety, and growth of individuals, teams, and the squad as a whole. WHY? Because we can only minister to the depths we’ve been ministered to in our own hearts. We can only love others to the extent that we’ve experienced God’s love. And we can only heal others to the extent we’ve seen God’s healing touch in our own lives. 🙂

But let me give you a more intimate look, without giving away anything personal about racers, from our most recent debrief in Romania.

Hollis and I begin working on debrief about a month before debrief actually even happens. We come up with a ‘schedule.’ Even though we don’t know lodging, food, transport, or many many other details 🙂 we still piece together a pretty sound schedule, down to the hour, for 39 racers, 2 coaches, and 2 squad leaders.

This time, once we did our continent shift, coordinated and led the travel across the globe from Nepal to Romania, we arrived at our debrief location here in Brasov, Romania. (Let me just tell you, Brasov is a beautiful quaint and slow paced city, and the snow here makes you feel like you’re inside a Christmas snow globe, that’s how beautiful it is:) Highly reccommend.

Upon arrival, drum roll please, debrief begins!!!

I will spare you the minute details of the schedule, and exactly what we do these 5 days. But I will tell you what the days mostly include. Coach’s, SQL, and Team Leader catch up times. Team Debriefs, individual and group development plans. And there are also Worship times as a whole squad, many ‘one-on-one’s,’ adventure outings, and many other in between meetings and planning for Hollis and I.

Well, here’s where the story takes a different turn. In fact, a HUGE, MASSIVE, turn.

Part of being a Squad Leader is being sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Well, Hollis and I do our best at keeping our antenna on high alert to what God is saying and doing before and during debrief. During this debrief, our antenna’s were accessed by God halfway through, because I think we weren’t exactly on the same wavelength with Him in all things.

So one afternoon, with good intentions, our actions in a conversation with someone revealed to us that we were probably speaking and acting out of our flesh. We made a mistake. It was our wake up call. And so we stopped. We stopped in that moment, and asked God what he wanted. We turned our plans over to him. We actually turned all of debrief over to Him. We recognized that yes we had a good schedule, great goals for debrief, but God wanted to accomplish them differently and in His way.

And so we adjusted. We went on from that moment and ended up changing around meetings, worship times, certain squad talks, conversations, etc. And what we experienced was AMAZING!!!

The next few days we ended up seeing God come through in astounding ways. Our Worship times found themselves to be times of brokenness and healing, of songs sang with a fervor we had yet experienced since starting the race, and with words of truth and life being spoken out over racers. Conversations with racers turned into personal revelations time and time again. And even adventure times for the guys and girls turned into bonding experiences that couldn’t have been planned otherwise.

All this to say, our goals were met, but by God’s hand at the wheel.

This is a picture into Squad Leading. A debrief is a very exhausting and trying time for a Squad Leader, but it is so rewarding that it makes me dance and sing like a crazy guy down the streets of Brasov. Today, a few days after the squad has already left to ministry sites and us leadership stayed back to rest, I found myself alone, singing crazily loud and excitedly to the song RESURRECT ME by Jon Foreman, down the snow covered cobble stone streets of Brasov.

Because I’m alive; Alive in Christ. It’s this FREEDOM that we want racers to catch. It’s the hope that the scales of religion, the shackles of lies, will be thrown off, trampled on once and forever. The freedom to dance, sprint, and rejoice in their true identity in Christ here on earth NOW, and not waiting to live alive and victoriously only at the entrance into heaven’s dreamy gates. But that their now, their present, and their future, can be caught, through living in community, living with 30 plus other young adults speaking love, life, and truth into each others lives as they minister to this broken world across 11 different countries.

And so it’s this passion that I have, that us leadership has, that gives us this season of a ‘JOB.’ A job that is amazing with the adventure it presents, but also amazing with the depth and magnitude of responsibility of caring for, inspiring, and watching over a body of Christ.

So, I lay here on my bed, wanting to connect with you, my reader, my supporter, my family member, my friend. I want to connect you into who Noe is right now (and Hollis-because she’s going to re-post this per our plans of exchanging a Lion Chocolate Bar with me in ex-change), what I do, and why I love this so much. Now, off to dinner, in the Brasov square, to celebrate ‘Women’s Day’ here in Romania. I have no idea what that means, but I do know that it’s not Valentine’s day, but there’s flowers for women involved somehow, and that I might not get a seat at a restaurant because all the ladies get priority to celebrate. See, it’s these weird and funny things that I’ve also come to love about what this Job offers. So much better than many zero’s in my bank account, but I get the security of a day fully alive!

(p.s. I could still use some more $ so if interested…click donate to your left 🙂 just saying…also true for Hollis 🙂

Augustine – “The Glory of God is a heart fully alive”