“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in
Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:14
I love kids. I didn’t realize just how much I had a heart for them until I began the Race. In Swaziland, myself and the other men of E Squad were insanely blessed with the opportunity to do some partial ministry at an orphanage for kids 5 years old and under. Now we mainly were with the older boys because the aunties (name for women who take care of the children) wanted them to have more male interaction. One of the older boys that I spent a lot of time with was named Gabriel. He is a great kid.
One night we took all of the older boys out to KFC in the city. When we were driving back we noticed that Gabriel and a couple of the other boys weren’t sitting in their seat safely. So we told them they need to sit with their butt on their seats and their faces facing forward. Simple enough, right?
Well Gabriel was really trying to be obedient and listening to us men but a couple of the other kids weren’t listening. Gabriel told many of them on the way back, “Sit on your butt!” and, “Face forward!” I was so proud of him. Because he did more than just telling his other brothers to be safe. He saw that we (the men) cared for all of the kids and didn’t want them to get hurt. He didn’t know the exact reason why we wanted them to sit properly but he understood that it was for good reason.
I stepped down as Squad Leader for the remainder of the Race. I thought that being a Squad Leader was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. There’s so much sacrifice of time, stressful situations, logistical failures, figuring out the best for everyone, problems, being put under the microscope, receiving hard feedback that both was and wasn’t my fault, and many more things that I couldn’t even count to. It’s hard.
But that’s nothing compared to actually making the step of quitting.
I wanted to finish as a Squad Leader. I wanted to not ever stop making my job of loving the squad. I wanted to continue to serve them. But my time was up. And I don’t have any shame in that. I served this squad with a ‘title’ for the last 4 months. And I plan on continuing to serve this squad as a normal racer for the last 3 months of the Race. I don’t know what that looks like but I’m going to start by simply loving. That’s the whole reason why I applied for this journey in the first place. I didn’t know exactly what the Lord had in store for me but I started with love.
Like Gabriel, I don’t have full comprehension as to why this is happening. I just know that the Lord has said, “Well done.” That’s all that I need. And I am overjoyed at the blind future of the remainder of the Race.
