For those of you keeping up with my World Race Journey I am sure you may have noticed some new faces and some new places in the past couple of months! In Guatemala, month 4, I had my first team change, it was temporary and that was how Team Thunder came into existence, 6 girls from 6 different places and from 3 different original teams. We were only together for 1 month but we had a blast together.
Then came more team changes, at the end of our first 4 months in Central America we had a debrief in Antigua, Guatemala. All 43 of us came together and were separated into brand new teams. I was asked to be a team leader and I said yes, far before I knew who my new team mates would be. I could have never imagined or put together the team of seven that was chosen for us. I remember the moment when the teams were made known. Our whole squad was together and we were sitting in a circle with our eyes closed, our leadership team passed out tiny pieces of paper with our new team mates names on them. We were asked to pray and release the past few months and be open to the new teams and new assignments we were about to step into. My hands were sweating and shaking I honestly could have cried or threw up, I had all the fears and all the doubts, not in the people surrounding me but in myself. What if I suck at being a team leader? What if my team doesn’t like me? What if I cant relate to them? What if I push them in the wrong direction? I remember praying ( a very familiar prayer) God I hope you know what you are doing because I certainly do not, then I changed my attitude of fear into a platform of motivation. My self fears and doubts became my prayers, help me to be a good leader, help me to inspire my new team, help me build them up, help me encourage them to be who they are designed to be, help me to love them and maybe if you could find it in your heart help them to like me 😉 because that just makes life more enjoyable, Amen.
On to the seven strangers…..
I opened my eyes and was shocked! Two of my original teammates Keaton (my former team leader) and Jonathan (the former team leader of the all guys temporary team) were on that piece of paper. Heather my room mate from my second team, Team Thunder was on that paper, and 3 new but refreshing names! Micheal, Maria and AnnaBeth. Micheal was the guy I knew better than the other guys that I had never been on a team with, I had a few interactions with him at training camp and all squad month I saw that he had such a great heart and such a servant attitude, he was always intentional about asking and actually caring how the people around him were doing and how he could help! I got to know Maria a little back in August at training camp, the night where half of our squads belongings were ‘lost in transit’ a staged drill, Maria and I became tent mates! I actually ended up in my hammock and sweet Maria slept in our sauna of a tent. I had also picked her name in month 2 during one of our Thanksgiving month exercises called the love wall and we had to pay attention to the good qualities we saw in each other and she had so many that stood out. I was super pumped to have her on this team. Side note she is Canadian and I really like Canadians! Anna Beth I hadn’t talked to too much but the few times we had conversations I had developed a huge friend crush on her, I was so excited that now we were team mates and she would have to be my friend.
I was so scared, I was so scared of seven ‘strangers’ coming together that I had missed the point that we weren’t strangers at all. And so the adventure began. We were given a scavenger hunt list of things to do and make a video compilation to show to the whole squad and reveal our new team name and what we want our team to model in the upcoming months.
Team Parkour was born, after the first five minutes of filming it was easy to see that this team was going to laugh a lot, adventure a lot, push the limits a lot, and possibly come across as slightly inappropriate a lot (shout out to Micheal & Jonathan for the lady and the tramp approach of eating a hotdog together for our intro video) Right from the get go this team was quirky and weird but so wonderful!
A few of the qualities our team wants to live by: Quickness to forgive, untapped strength and authority, powerful team time, stillness before the Lord, endurance, new depth, laughter, breaking down walls, adventure and risk taking, fully surrendered, wholehearted trust, depending on God for the impossible, overcoming obstacles, loving and valuing each other……. the list goes on but thats just to give you an idea that when the seven of us came together we believed that great things would happen!
Mission #1 as a team, Unsung Heros in Malaysia. The World Race needs more ministry contacts around the world, so they’re appoint people on the field to actively look for such contacts and set up partnerships. In addition to expanding their network, AIM (Adventures in Missions) is also interested in identifying “unsung heroes” in ministry around the world. They consider an unsung hero to be someone who is “dedicated to serving some of the most impoverished populations in the world, rarely receives recognition for their dedication and service.” Our goal was to travel to the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur and find the people who are already serving in big ways, to thank them for what they are doing in their community and to offer to send future teams to serve along side them with works of mercy & grace including but not limited to, feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the naked, providing shelter to the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned and so much more. We had a month that looked very different from all of the past months. We had a leads list and starting making phone calls! We met with tons of amazing people who were secret missionaries, because it is a muslim nation and its illegal to preach the gospel, we met with pastors of churches who devote countless hours praying for this country, we met with men and women who ran schools and orphanages, we met with a woman who started a refugee school for kids with zero rights for education. Long story short our month looked very different day to day and a lot different than any other month on the field, it felt a lot like business meetings but with strangers who actually felt a lot like old friends I hadn’t seen in a while. It felt like freedom to make our own schedules. Much like my description of our team at a glance the month was weird but wonderful!
So the seven strangers, now known as team parkour came together and got the job done but more importantly our network of ‘strangers’ had grown to include so many new and beautiful faces and friends! I can’t say enough times how grateful I am for all of the people at home that made this journey possible, and for all of my team mates family and friends that made this journey possible for them. It is such a blessing to serve along side this team and it was such a privilege to be a link between these incredible new World Race contacts and the future teams that are answers to their prayers.
