Two weeks ago, everything was different. I didn’t know who I would be with for this final leg of my trip. Long before our squad came together for debrief I knew things were changing. Leadership had us discuss and reflect on the past month, provided us with some training and teaching, and finally assigned new teams. I had no idea how much change we were in for.
Friday morning, I found out that my new team leader was Pablo Chavez, and that I would spend the last three months of my Race with him and Brooke Chavez, Lara Crawford, Emily Knudson, Ryan Vogel, Steve Gonzalez, and Hunter Young. I was so excited about the possibilities of this great group and really surprised that after 8 months on all girl teams I was going to be on a coed team! As a group we discussed what we wanted for this final leg of the race and what we could name our team to reflect those hopes and vision. Steve suggested the name Horizon and we all loved it. Team Horizon.
That team didn’t even last the night. Hours later, Ryan and two other men from our squad met with leadership to discuss a problem. The result of the conversation was that the guys were sent home early. Steve didn’t agree with the decision and chose to stay behind with them.
In the blink of an eye one quarter of our team was gone. The next morning we woke up before the sun to get ready to board a bus to Botswana. The first hour of the trip the buses were filled with crying, followed by several hours of quiet. We were all grieving and processing, trying to get over the shock and make sense of what had just happened the night before. Regardless of who was right and who was wrong, our squad suffered a loss. We were in some respects a family and we had to say goodbye to four of our brothers.
Many of us felt defeated in this time. I questioned how God was going to be able to use this for good. It was there in that hot, cramped bus I was reminded of the story of Joseph from the Old Testament.
Joseph had high hopes for what his future would hold. God revealed to him in his dreams that he would be powerful and favored. Then it seemed like God fell asleep at the wheel when Joseph’s brothers turned on him, stripped him of his clothes, threw him in a pit and sold him into slavery. How is this part of the plan? It seemed like satan hijacked Joseph’s life and would rob him of the good things God promised.
I feel like we’re a squad full of Josephs right now. All of us, both the men who were sent home and those of us who are still here, feel like our Race had been hijacked. No matter what a person believes about the situation, whether you agree with leadership or you don’t, we all have been wounded by this is one way or another. The division it’s caused in our family. The unanswered questions and distrust. The hole where four men of God once stood. It hurts. How can we recover?
I fully believe that just as The Lord redeemed every bad thing that happened to Joseph he can do the same for us. Things got worse before they got better in Joseph’s case (you can read the whole story in Genesis chapters 37, 39-45, and 50) but the setbacks and disasters that seemed to be dragging Joseph further away from God’s blessings were the very thing that God chose to line the path to His perfect will for him.
No one can mess up God’s plans. Not me, not you, not AIM leadership, not disgruntled missionaries that don’t want to submit to authority. Not even satan. No matter how we mess up we can’t make a mess so horrible that He can’t use it. He redeems our trash for riches and gives us beauty for ashes.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I didn’t expect this to happen, and I know our guys didn’t envision their Race ending this way. But Jesus isn’t surprised. He’s on the throne and He already knows how He wants to use this to being us all closer to Him. My prayer now is that whatever happens, in the end we can all say that it was for good. Even if our enemies meant it for evil, God allowed it because He meant it for good.
[ ” A s f o r y o u , y o u m e a n t e v i l a g a i n s t m e , b u t G o d m e a n t i t f o r g o o d . . . ” G e n e s i s 5 0 : 2 0 ]
As we came to grips with the reality that our team was forever changed, It didn’t feel right going forward with the name Horizon without Steve and Ryan. So we started talking about a new name.
Joseph’s Crown.
On the surface the name is made up of Ryan’s first name (which is actually Joseph) and the meaning of Steven which is Crown. But the deeper meaning has to do with the events that kicked off this final season of the World Race, and our expectation that God will present us with something beautiful at the end of all this, a crown if you will.
We are all Josephs in this life. We are living in a fallen world and we will all inevitably experience being mistreated, rerouted, and having the rug pulled out from under us. In each of these instances, we get to choose if we will let it defeat us, change us for the worst, or if we will trust God to do what He does best. Would you rather focus all your attention on the hurt or keep your eyes open to see your Deliverer act? If you aren’t careful, you may end up missing the crown that God wants to make for you out of the suffering.
