This month, I have a new team! I remember the day that we were placed in our new teams, I was so unsure of the randomness of it all. They had to separate all the boys for their “manistry” month and all the girls were completely jumbled into new teams and then divided all of us into two groups to be put at two locations in the country.
My initial reaction to my new team:
This has to be the most random grouping that could ever be put together. I hadn’t even had real conversations with a couple of the girls prior to our new team arrangement. I was shocked.
However, I like change and was prepared to get the most out of this cluster of girls that God put together.
But, I was also confused, disappointed and sad to be in a separate living group than a few of the girls on my last team. (I do miss them this month quite a bit). I was grouped with 17 other girls, again, some of which I hadn’t spoken to much before our current living situation.
My feelings now about this change:
Wow. God is so crazy wonderful and knows what He is doing. The past week and a half has been amazing.
(My new team! Marie, Heather, Molly, Abby and I)
After talking with the girls on my team and getting to know their needs, loves, personalities, and hearts I am realizing how completely not random this is at all. God literally placed us together. We have so much in common.
Our team name is Restoration. I actually came up with it one morning during my quiet time. I was praying for God to name our team. I just kept thinking about how random this team is and how it is exactly the “fruit basket” that our coaches spoke of last debrief. And fruity it was.
I like fruit though, and I was really enjoying this new team.
I was flipping the pages in my journal and saw the “peach” decoration I had on a previous journal entry. (I prepped my pages and I didn’t know what the peach meant at the time. I remember when I prepped the pages, I prayed over the random things I glued or taped in, hoping that they’d make sense when I got to them. And when I got to the peach page, it meant nothing, so I just took notes on it.) I took notes during our coach Betsy’s talk and had written the words Restoration in pretty cursive.
Sitting there flipping through my journal, thinking about my new fruity team, I paused and looked at the peach page. Was this a sign? A peach is a fruit… And restoration is a cool word, something each of us desire this month.
It was interesting because we had been talking about rest recently. We desired for this month to be restful. And it felt restful in so many ways. We had so much fun together, laughed a ton and received joyful rest in our new team. We also had time in the mornings to spend with Jesus in prayer, reading and resting.
I looked at the word restoration, knowing that rest was something we were learning this month as well at restoration and I wished that oration meant something. I looked it up and guess what? It does! In greek, it means prayer! We have been focusing so much on prayer this month also. We pray a lot for each other, spend time in prayer daily during our quiet times and desire to grow in our individual prayer lives.
I told the name to the other girls on my team and they LOVED it! We talked about all that God is doing in their lives and wanting to restore. It’s been such a wonderful couple of weeks of growing and learning from each other and reaching for new depths in our walks with God.
(Here we are eating cookie dough with Nicole. Molly makes the BEST desserts ever!)
As far as the living situation (living with 17 other girls) I am just having a blast. It’s a small house and we have an outhouse in the backyard as a restroom, take bucket showers and hand wash our clothes. But we watch movies a lot and really just have a lot of fun.
We incorporated this cool idea of having a “Queen” each day, where one girl has to wear a crown and we go around telling all things wonderful about her. It’s so beautiful as we recognize the amazing qualities in one another.
We also have delicious meals that are themed each day of the week (marinara Monday, twisted taco Tuesday, wake-up Wednesday, throwback Thursday, fiesta Friday, saucey Saturday, and soupy Sunday). I love when it’s my team’s turn to cook. We have so much fun!
(Chellis' team on Marinara Monday. In their best Italian attire. Accents were a must)
(the dinner they made. SO GOOD)
And my favorite part- desserts are mandatory. : )
(DIRT! How have I never had this as a child? We made it on our thowback Thursday night. Amazing)
Basically, it’s been an amazing month so far and I am so excited for the rest of my time in Swaziland.
Thanks for all your prayers and following my blogs! I’ll keep you posted.
