I have exciting news! So if you’ve been following along for a while you know that X Squad has been a squad full of change. We started with a route that was originally going to Albania, Madagascar, Jamaica, and Laos. We are now going to Namibia, Haiti, Myanmar, and Romania (Where I’m at currently). That is a small route change, but still 4 countries changing before we even left the United States we knew this would not be the last of the changes. We’ve had squad mentors change and for the first month some of our squad went to Albania instead of Serbia. Change after change after change. It’s been a beautiful reminder of how we’re not truly in control. The Lord is in control of this journey and we just have to trust him. We’ve learned what it means to give up control and simply trust in the process of what this trip is. We are going to countries and we don’t have much control of it. Until the EXCITING NEWS!
Several days ago my team and two other teams were presented with an option. As of several days ago we were planning on going to Bulgaria and then with this news we were presented the opportunity to go to Greece! It came as a shock to me, because you always hear of people going on vacation to Greece, and yet we have an amazing ministry this coming month. After taking time to pray about it as a team we felt like the Lord was calling us to go and serve in Greece for the month of October. Now what is it that we’ll be doing in Greece? Well, I’m glad you asked! We will be working at a refugee camp on the island of Lesvos, Greece. The camp houses about 3,000 refugees that have no homes and were kicked out of their countries due to the Syrian refugee crisis. (If you’ve kept up on world news at all in the past year you know what I’m talking about) While we are at the camp we will be ministering to the refugees, sharing the gospel, giving them clothes, food, anything at all that the camp needs from us. Within the month that we are there we will most likely deal with 1,000 refugees directly. That’s 1,000 lives that are broken and need the love of Christ! I can’t wait to share that with them as well as just love them in every way I can.
Now you may be wondering why we needed to process and ask the Lord if we were supposed to go to Greece? Well when we were presented with the choice we were told we would have to raise more money to be able to go. This of course came as a shock, because when you’re already fundraising a certain amount, fundraising anymore feels almost like a burden. The amount was $7,000 extra dollars amongst three teams. Which came to around $380 a person. This number wasn’t insane, but it still was intimidating. I have been blessed to have a married couple on my team, and any decision they make financially must be considered heavily because they’re paying for two people not just one. So the decision was a tough one. We prayed and met several times to try to come to a consensus. We were also pressed to make a decision, we only had several hours to decide. Which again may seem like an easy decision to make, but things hold a different weight with a married couple on the team. We wanted their accommodations to be appropriate for their marriage and we couldn’t promise that if we were at a refugee camp for the month. Then after prayer and consideration we decided we would go. We knew that the Lord would provide the finances, because he is a God that has domain over everything. THAT INCLUDES MONEY! After telling leadership we had decided yes, we begun to get excited about the opportunity we had in Greece. Then as if God wasn’t already cool enough for providing the chance to serve in this regard, we learned about the actual number we needed to raise. $2,300. THAT’S IT. That’s $2,300 for 3 teams. If you do the math that’s not expensive at all. God knows when to show up and he did in a way we weren’t expecting.
So now we are fundraising as a squad to be able to go to the refugee camp! What’s cool about this is if you were wanting to donate to my trip, you can now choose exactly where the money is going. You’ll know that your donation helped get me, my team, and two other teams to Greece and allowed us to serve refugees at Moria Refugee Camp. The link to donate is below.
