When your team for the Race is announced at training camp, you get all excited inside, and think to yourself, these are the people I am going to spend every day of eleven months with. While that is sometimes true, the truth is that most Racers go through some form or another of those sometimes dreaded (sometimes hoped for) two words: team changes.
Our squad has only gone through two team changes. At the end of month three, when we were leaving Nicaragua and heading to the Philippines, we gained Andrew. Then, at the end of month six leaving Malaysia and going to Cambodia, we lost Tiffany and Brittany, and gained Rachel and Cheyanne.
While I've had four consistent teammates for the Race, the only girl that has been with me the entire time is Angela.
We were friends from the beginning, whether it was because we are the same size (fun sized!), have similar humor, or because we are apparently twins (we were stopped on the street in Malaysia and told so).
After being with each other for nine months straight, we can look at each other and know exactly what the other one is thinking. In Cambodia, our team was going to watch a movie. I had already set up my sleeping pad for optimal viewing purposes, and Angela walked in the room. All it took was for her to look at me, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. I moved my pad over, and she said, "Thanks!"
Angela is and has been a integral part of our team. Unfortunately, she has had a long hard road when it comes to fundraising. She still is in need of $1500, and will either be sent home early or will be in debt when she returns home. Neither of these options are good ones. It is really hard on the entire squad when one Racer goes home, and even rougher for their team.
Teams become like a family-we work together, play together, and live together. We see each other at our best, and (sometimes to our embarrassment) at our worst.
For Team Cool Runnings, if we lose Angela, we lose our resident children expert. She's pursuing a teaching degree, and has always been willing to step up to teach a class on the fly, when the rest of us are still trying to collect our thoughts from the initial freak out moment (ICAN'TTEACHACLASSI'MNOTATEACHERWHATWILLITALKABOUT???). Angela has an eye for the kid on the outside-the outcast that is standing on the edge of the crowd. In the Philippines, when we were working in the slums, she came across a group of kids that had tied up and were bullying a little guy. She ran over, reprimanded the bullies, untied the kid, and kept an eye out for him for the rest of the time we were there.
Our team can't afford to lose Angela, and she can't afford to go home in debt. Fortunately, our God is a God who loves to bless his children. All we have to do is ask. Angela has asked. Our team and our squad has asked.
Sometimes, it's hard to understand why God waits to answer our prayers. I think that in this case, He wants more of His people to be a part of it. Through Josh's and my experience with being blessed through your support and becoming fully funded, we have learned that it is about so much more than just enabling us to do what we do. It is about how you can have an active and integral role in reaching the lost, hurting, and broken all over the world. We literally would not be here in Uganda, fighting to end child sacrifice if it weren't for the financial and emotional support we have received.
Please consider being a part of the work that our team is doing by helping to get Angela fully funded. We can't afford to lose her, and the children of Uganda, Swaziland, and South Africa can't afford to lose her either.
If you would like to support her, you can either do so online via credit or debit card here, or you can send a check to the Adventures in Missions office at:
Adventures In Missions
P.O. Box 534470
Atlanta, GA 30353-4470
Make sure to write Angela McKenzie in the memo line. If you send a check, please email me so we can count it in the donations since checks take a few weeks to process. If you want to hear Angela's stories from her, check out her blog at angelamckenzie.theworldrace.org
Thank you so much for helping to keep my friend and teammate on the field! 🙂
