Yesterday we experienced our first team change. I officially said goodbye to Team Hesed and hello to Team JUBILEE!
The past four months were a beautiful, difficult, learning season. Hesed taught me what it actually looks like to fight through first impressions and differences to cultivate meaningful relationships. I learned what it looked like to choose each other despite our feelings in the moment. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it was a picture of what the church really should look like.
That being said, I was beginning to feel a bit burnt out. The constant work of choosing each other is exhausting (worthwhile) stuff. In preparation for team changes I had been praying a lot and I had been asking the Lord to bring me into a season of restoration and true joy. I was praying for a team that would have a more natural flow. A team that shared my love of sports and puppies and music, but also desired to build a true community. Most importantly I desired a group of people that could push me and grow me in new directions.
I’m a testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness. My prayers were answered!
Yesterday I was given a sealed envelope and was told to pray for awhile before opening it. The contents of the envelope were two index cards. One was written by me the day before and it said what I brought to the table as a team member. The second was my team (!!!). As I prayed and held the envelope in my hands I gave it all over to the Lord. I agreed that no matter what the card said I would choose love and others over myself and my desires. And then I saw their names.
It was like a breath of fresh air because I could immediately see the ways that the Lord had heard my prayers and answered them and as we sat together for the first time it seemed like that was the general consensus for us all.
We jumped right into discussing what we wanted the culture of our team to be and what team name would be appropriate. We almost unanimously felt that our group had a presence of strength, unity, and joy so we started rolling the word joy around, but it didn’t feel quite right. Then we considered joy in other languages… still not right. Then we looked up synonyms and came across Jubilee. It was almost right…. but not quite so we started digging in scripture to find the missing piece. This lead us to Leviticus which talks a lot about the year of Jubilee. If you’re not familiar with the concept, I’ll give you a basic rundown. In Old Testament times the Year of Jubilee happened every fifty years and in that year all things were restored to their original place. Debts were forgiven. Slaves were freed. Property and other things were returned. It was truly a year of freedom and redemption.
This was getting closer to our aim, this was good.
Then our team leader, Andre, told us that she had an idea. She took jubilee and turned it into an acronym:
Joy
Unity
Boldness
Intimacy
Love
Emmanuel
Everlasting
Which was met with a resounding YES from our team. This is why our team name appears in capital letters. However, there was still just one more piece missing… what would our scripture be? Where would we root ourselves?
The answer to that question was found in Isaiah 12. The irony was real for me here. In case you forgot, I had a hard time with the book of Isaiah back in Nepal. It raised a lot of questions about the Father’s character for me and forced me to dig in deeper than I had ever done before. It was a difficult time honestly, but now it is coming full circle to a place of admiration within this team. God is good people. God is good.
In that day you will say:
“I will praise you, Lord.
Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away
and you have comforted me.
Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defensea]”>[a];
he has become my salvation.”
With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation.
In that day you will say:
“Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;
make known among the nations what he has done,
and proclaim that his name is exalted.
Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things;
let this be known to all the world.
Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,
for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.
This chapter of Isaiah is brief, but it encompasses all of the things our team is aiming to be. Strong, full of praise, joyful, fearless, and anointed by God.
So, it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Team JUBILEE and invite you into this new season of life on my World Race journey. I encourage you to head to all of my new teammate’s blogs so that you can subscribe to them as well (Taylor, Kim, Jo, Emmy, and Andre)! As much as I try to communicate the full experience to you through my blog, the reality is that I am only human and I will forget some details BUT if you follow all of them too perhaps your picture will be more complete.
I can’t wait to update you on our new ministry in Vietnam!
Love,
Kristen
