In May, over 85 Christians came together to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to the nations. At Ignition Training Camp we were split into 2 Squads, J and K. From there we were split into teams; six teams each comprised of seven Racers. We went through exercises and feedback sessions as AIM leadership tried to configure the most compatible teams. Through much prayer, the 6 teams were selected.
Since then all of the teams have been rearranged. Except one.
Tres, Bethany, Ralph, Nicole, Bambi, Heather, and Birkleigh have been together since day one of The World Race. And needless to say, they didn’t really want to be.
They started as Team Beautiful Feet. They struggled as a team to understand the Lord’s plan in having them together. Many (if not all) of them prayed that the teams would be changed in order to escape Beautiful Feet’s less-than-comfortable arrangement. But, low and behold, God had different plans.
At the beginning of November, K-Squad experienced change. The squad-leaders felt the Lord nudging them to mix the teams, so they did just that. But Beautiful Feet was the exception. Leadership clearly heard God telling them to keep the team together. Needless to say, the entire team spent the rest of the night crying their eyes out. Many of them even started praying into going home. Beautiful Feet was less than optimistic, but had hopes for the Lord changing their hearts. They changed their name to Team Mosaic, to symbolize their first step in a new direction.
Team Mosaic faced oppression still. Personalities clashed and disunity still peeked it’s lethal head in throughout their attempts to become a better team. A desire for a team change continue to plague their hearts and hopelessness creeped in frequently. In December things took a turn for the worse. Almost the entire team was on the verge of going home. They begged leadership to change their team, yet again, but, yet again, leadership heard the Lord calling them to keep them together. They did offer one change though: Tres decided to take a break from leadership and Bethany took the reins.
January brought change. K-Squad was finally out of Europe, into the bush of Africa where we all had pictured ourselves when we signed up for The World Race. Team Mosaic was assigned to ministry by themselves (other teams were paired up with another team), and throughout the month realized something: they really actually liked each other. Some attribute it to finally reaching a “letting go” point; others, the “real” ministry they were finally getting to do. But whatever is was, Mosaic had come to identify with it’s name: 7 separate people, all different, all unique, coming together as the workmanship of God, creating a beautiful masterpiece.
Team Mosaic reached a new level of unity. So much so that at our Nairobi Debrief in February, they changed their team name claiming the new identity from the Lord they had finally stepped into. A month later, after much prayer (and their best month yet), I’m so honored to present to you: Team Redeemed!
This group of 5 women and 2 men have reached a level of unity that can only be described as a family. To be perfectly honest, they put all the other teams to shame in the area of unity. February (Kenya) was their best month yet, and when the Squad came back together at the end of last month, they were almost unrecognizable.
