Dear Month 8 racers.
When you were launching last July I was getting on a plane too, to go to G42.
You were probably getting on a plane excited, energized and ready for whatever country was coming at you.
I was getting on a plane exhausted, broken and battered. And terrified.
I had been home from the race for about 6 months and I had fallen apart. Completely and utterly to pieces.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a Christian and I sure as hell didn’t want to be going to Spain. It was too vulnerable, too open, too much Jesus
I couldn’t really handle Jesus anymore.
But I got the plane alone and got off the plane in Malaga with my friend Abby waiting with arms wide open.
And then I saw Tiffany and Thomas.
And the next day Patty and I screamed (and probably freaked out Kellen while we were at.)
And then my sweet Emma got there
My heart swelled.
My people.
(Nsquad does Spain at Abby & Thomas’s graduation)
I got back on the plane 6 months later headed back to the states. I was crying this time too but it was out of love for my people that I was leaving. My heart was full and my head was high.
Today, as I was writing an article for something, I thought of you guys. Your month 8 debrief is on the horizon and you are going to get reentry packets, maybe you will hear about G42 and CGA. Most likely you will get overwhelmed (I did).
And then your teams will change or they won’t and you will pack up and go to ministry and that reentry packet will go into your daypack and you may or may not pull it out again. I actually did
If you don’t, if you never look at that thing again, I have three pieces of advice.
Three pieces of advice from someone who has come home twice.
1. That reentry packed that will get shoved in your daypack? Pull it out end of month ten/beginning month 11 and do it with your team. Go back over memories and trials, see where you have gone and where you want to go. 2nd gen N squad had a crazy awesome squad leadership team who taught us to lean into our stories and that alone helped immensely.
2. Plan to have people at home. If you didn’t have a community before, find one. Get one. Get PEOPLE. Don’t be alone just because you can. You don’t NEED people but they sure help an awful lot.
3. Find someone who is a few steps ahead of you to walk behind. Be discipled, be mentored, be counseled. You are going to have all of this knowledge, this love, this brokenness in you and it has to be let out. It has to go somewhere. Get advice, get direction, get love, get course correction. If you don’t know where to get that~ talk to your coaches, talk to pastors in your area, talk to google.
The last two pieces of advice can look so many different ways. It can look like plugging into a church or a community group or starting something.
It can look like squad leading or going to CGA or G42 or another discipleship program.
Maybe it’s going back to college or getting a Master’s.
Or it’s moving somewhere new.
And know that these aren’t failsafes. And you might still break, and question and fall apart a little.
But that’s ok.
Finish strong you crazy racers.
Keep doing the thing.
With love,
an alumni who has come home twice
(and as a PS if you’re thinking G42 shoot me a message!)
