Last May I signed up for the World Race and I prayed so hard that if this was the path that God wanted me to pursue, then He would allow me to be accepted.
2 weeks later I was accepted.
Then I prayed, If I am supposed to do this then You will provide the funding.
2 months later I was fully funded.
God has been so clear in my decision to come on the World Race, but until now I didn’t truly understand His purpose behind this 11 month journey with Him.
I spent the first three months enjoying the race, but only to a certain extent. I hadn’t fallen in love with a country, or a ministry, but things seemed to be going well. I loved my team and I was learning a lot about my relationship with God.
During debrief in the Philippines I spent some serious alone time with God, on the beach(my happy place!). I came to a perfect peace with Him and allowed myself to release all of the expectations that I had for the race. He made me excited for what the future would hold and told me to trust Him and not be anxious.
I had come on the race to experience different ministries and people groups, because I thought God was calling me to the mission field long term and I wanted discernment about where and in what capacity.
Notice all those I’s…
I have no idea whether or not God plans for me to serve Him on the field long term, but I do know that when I finally stopped focusing on me and put my eyes on Him, He showed up…In a BIG way.
I should’ve known to stop thinking for myself and just let Him move.
If He can raise $16,000 in 2 months, He can certainly direct my path on the race.
silly me for ever doubting that 🙂
God has called me into a position that makes my heart beat really fast and brings a huge smile to my face.
This week I was raised up to be a Squad Leader.
I’ll be honest, when I was first raised up I was surprised and really nervous. I felt inadequate to serve my squad and unequipped to lead them for the remainder of the race.
After a few days of prayer and processing I know those are lies from the enemy and God is fully present in this move to squad lead. I am also now super pumped for my new position on the squad.
This is His purpose for my race.
So, many of you reading might wonder what all this means?
Well, it means that my race is going to drastically change, in a good way. “Squad leaders exist to serve the squad and lead them in the areas of spiritual and emotional growth, team health, effective ministry and pursuit of God.”
Squad leading is about investing in my brothers and sisters and pulling them into the greatness that God has for them. It is a leadership role that I know will stretch and challenge me, but it will also bring me closer to being in the likeness of Christ and that is the ultimate goal. Much of my identity in life has been reflective in leadership and while I am working on my identity being solely in my place as a daughter of Christ, I know that this role was God’s sovereign will for my race and for my squad.
I am also totally pumped that He pulled me into this position with two other amazing women of God, Jena and Hanna. We all bring so many different gifts to this team and I can’t wait to see how they mesh together for God’s glory.
I ask that you be in prayer for the three of us as we begin this new adventure on the race. We will be spending this month with our current squad leaders being trained and learning to work together. At the end of this month our alumni squad leaders will return home and the squad will be left in our hands (and of course, our Father’s hands, but that’s a given!). Please begin to pray for wisdom, discernment, confidence and a contagious passion and energy that will overflow into our squad.
“Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.”
-1 Corinthians 7:17
with love from Malaysia,
sam
