MONTH 5!! It’s crazy to say that we are in our final month in Asia. These past four months have been an incredible journey through Asia. Finding God outside of our normal culture, patterning with incredible ministries, being poured into by ministry hosts, loving the lost, and one of my favorite parts living in community with amazing women are some of my favorite parts from our first four months.
So what’s the next season on the race look like? At the end of Cambodia we had team changes and four squad members were chosen to be raised up as squad leaders. For the first five months of our race, AIM sent three beautiful and wise women to help us start our race strong. Amanda, Tammy, and Lo all have done the race before and came back out on the field as alumni squad leaders. These lovely ladies have sacrificially and unconditionally loved us, lead us, and shown us really how abundant life is when we pursue God wholeheartedly. I will forever be grateful for the ways these women served and lead us and unified our squad.
So as these three prepare to go home after month 5, leadership asked the beautiful married couple, Eric and Krystal, fellow TL Jacob, and myself to step into squad leading for the remainder of our race! Our focus on ministry has shifted slightly. We will still participate in partnering with ministries each month, but our greatest ministry is our squad now. Squad leading will consist of our team of four pouring into our squad through prayer, encouragement, and loving each and every beautiful squad mate how the Lord calls us to.
We are spending our month in Thailand training for this new position and shadowing our alumni squad leaders. As the months go on, I’ll know more about what squad leading will look like, but for now I am excited to share this news with you all and beyond thankful for this opportunity to intentionally love and pursue each squad mate. My passions are for seeing my fellow peers pursue God and learn the depth of His love and I’m beyond thankful to be in a position that gets to encourage and challenge them in this.
Our team of four decided to go with the team name “The Sojourners” we saw it fitting because we each travel to a different team each month and ultimately will be traveling from place to place the rest of our lives as we acknowledge our residency is in heaven and the earth is our mission field.
Let me tell you, Eric, Krystal, and Jacob are incredible teammates!! There already have been so many great laughs and conversations between the four of us and I’m grateful for this new family. I look forward to the many ways we will bond, dive deep into scripture together, love each other, and pursue God and our squad. You will be seeing many pictures and hearing stories about these three great friends! I encourage you to follow their blogs because they have a lot of truth to share and amazing stories of how God is using them to bring the Kingdom around the world.
There’s probably more I could share, but this is already a long blog, so thank you for taking a few minutes to read this update! I’ll get back into the routine of posting two blogs a week to keep all of you updated more frequently!!
Right now I’m somewhere in Thailand with my alumni squad leader Amanda hanging out with team Bamboo! Such a solid group of ladies! We are putting on an English camp for the local kids! Prayers for many to show up and that we can love these children well are greatly appreciated!
I’ll be headed to the beach for another week of training on May 12th and then spending the week after that with another team and alumni squad leader. Our team will then meet up again to debrief the month and plan our Leadership Development Weekend that is happening at the end of this month.
THANK YOU for your continual support, prayers, and encouragement! I greatly appreciate all of the love I have received from you all as I journey through this year abroad.
May you all be richly blessed!!
Until Next Time,
Michelle
Squad leading initiation was being blind folded, placed in a taxi, and then driven far away and dropped off at a random place in Bangkok. We were given written instructions and had to find our way back to our hostel. It was quite the experience to say the least.
Eight hours of travel with Amanda to get to team Bamboo and it was a blast! Amanda is one of my favorite people…just don’t let her know!!
Hanging with team Bamboo (McKenzie, Danielle, Klancy, Sara, Allie, and Caitlin) and loving every single second with them!
