i’m posting this from delta flight 1786 from atlanta to new york city thanks to a free trial of wi-fi from gogo inflight internet.  sorry if that sounded like a commercial.

I am part
of the seventh World Race squad that launched just over a year ago. AIM likes to assign letters of the alphabet
to keep track, hence our squad is the
G-Squad

The God
Squad. The
Good Squad. The Geek Squad. Squad Glory. Squad Giddy. The Guinea Pig Squad. 

How ‘bout
I make up a word –
Grazy (Grace + Crazy)?

But
here’s what
God told Mike Paschall one night
during the M & N Squads’ training camp this past week+: G is for
gravel. . .

. . . that
will become concrete that will be part of the foundation. There’s a lot that
goes
into building something and each component is crucial: the concept, the design, the planning, the
materials, and the manpower.  Each phase of construction depends on the one
that preceded it.

The World
Race has
grown so rapidly that it’s easy to forget that the pioneer
squad launched only three years ago. When my squad was “training” over a year ago, the center was unfinished;
when I first beheld the site over a week ago, I hardly recognized it.

It’s been
wonderful to be on this side of training camp. Not only have I been reunited with a chunk of my squad, but I’ve been
blessed through serving over a hundred new World Racers. Bearing witness to and being a part of what
God is
doing in each of these men and women has been life-
giving.

It’s been
gratifying to read of current Racers working with ministries for
whom the G-Squad was their introduction to the World Race, like Casa Shalom
(Bucharest, Romania), Casa Jackson (Antigua, Guatemala), and My Father’s House
(San Lucas,
Guatemala). I want to see future Racers run full speed through the places where we
simply paved the way. 

I want greater
things for successive
generations of the World Race. I’m so grateful that God entrusted some groundbreaking to me. I’m so glad to
have been in
Georgia these past two weeks, to cook and
clean and pray and worship and listen (I hope I did that more than I spoke),
and camp and eat and dance and
grieve and galvanize and guide. It’s awesome to watch them get it.

Freely I’ve received, freely I give. Because I
know
God to be generous, He
will
grant me this request.