I’m not really sure how to properly express this, so I’ll just go into it and see where I wind up. Firstly, to let you know, training camp has been awesome, stretching, and at times painful. Not just when I offered to be a human climbing rope and my back made funny noises, but I’ve also had to say goodbye to members of my world race family since being here already. Some have been led to wait a few more months to join the next January team. Others are not sure where they are being led yet, but know that they aren’t to be on this team. Those were not easy goodbyes.
As a result of the changes, one of our four teams was down to only 5 people, and after prayer and deliberation, it was asked that the two teams that still had eight people each have a volunteer come forward to leave their team and join the smaller one, to make it three teams of 7 and one of 6. My team was one of the two to give someone over. Even though Megan will be on the race with us still, this was probably the hardest ‘goodbye’ of them all since it’s the first to directly affect my small team. I think it’s hard for some to understand how close you can become in such a short time in the intensity that is training camp. Though I don’t know someone’s entire life history or even what foods they hate yet, I can honestly say that I feel as close to several on my team as I do my own family. It’s the same feeling of wanting to be there through all things for them, and protect them from whatever may come. So the idea of not seeing Megan in our team meetings each morning and not going through this race with her is less than easy. I think it was the right decision, and I know things will all be awesome again, but right now there’s a Megan shaped hole in our team that we’re having to let go of.
That said, allow me to introduce you to my team: Brandon Headrick, Pam Perry, Cameron Cary, Christie Albaugh, Sarah Lapp, and Haley Gordon. If you can, put yourself on their email lists for blog updates. If not just for Brandon’s hilarious videos of training, it will also give you a better rounded idea of all that’s going on this year. And they are my everything out here – my family, my friends, my co-workers, my ministers, my roommates, everything – so be praying for them every bit as much as you do for me. They’ll need it with me around all the time 😛
And finally, we leave on the morning of the 15th for Thailand. Please be in prayer as we enter our first ministry together. Daily dishes of pad thai, here I come!
