A lot has happened since Parent Vision Trip, which took place the last week of May in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
The same day PVT ended, my squad left on an overnight bus to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We arrived the following day around 7pm on May 31st.
We spent the next few days at the Adventures in Missions base in Siem Reap called Overflow for our Month 8 debrief. Our Squad Mentor, Fran, and our two World Race Alumni Squad Leaders, Audrey and Soto, flew in to support, coach and teach us.
We had all been anxiously waiting for debrief because…we knew we were having TEAM CHANGES and we would finally get to know who was going to be on our final team for these last three months!
While we actually were given the opportunity to prayerfully input 4 names of who we wanted on our final team back in Malaysia, God surprised me with an incredible team to finish out the Race with.
That leads me to the promise God has for me and my team this new and final season of the World Race, “Harvest”.
My friend Jess Torres who had been on my team since Month 1, was given a vision from the Lord (before teams were announced) about the seasons of her World Race teams and the promises He’s made for her this last season.
Here’s what she said about the first two seasons and God’s promise for her the final season,
“My first team, Wild Fires, was hard. We arrived to the Race as untouched fields, and we needed to do a lot of weeding, tilling, and digging to make our soil fertile and ready for new growth. It was hard, backbreaking work but it was worth it, kind of like the soccer field we helped build in Guatemala! The work we did in each other was so important for the season that would follow. We transitioned into our second teams as cleared fields with tilled soil and seeds scattered.
My second team, Five Multiplied (5x), fully embodied the word peace. They created an environment in which the seeds that were scattered in Wild Fires had the opportunity to grow! During my time on this team, I focused a lot of energy into pursuing intimacy with Jesus. It was like I put my soul into the soil and as I chased after Jesus, I grew deep deep roots. It wasn’t until the end of our third month together as a team that I glanced above the surface, looked around me, and saw that the roots I had dug deep into Jesus had fostered growth in the exterior of my life, too! My field was full of leafy green plants!! Wow how cool! And all the while, my team tended to me, watered me, and cared for me. The way you care for baby plants is very different from the way you handle weeds in your garden, so my experience on 5x was drastically different from Wild Fires, but again, the work we did in Wild Fires was absolutely essential.
I asked God what His plan was for my final season of the Race, and He told me, HARVEST”
She shared this vision with me and because we had been on the same team, the seasons coincided with mine as well, and I had the same hope for the promise given to her for the final 3 months of the race, “Harvest”.
As you can probably guess, Jess and I are on the SAME team and will be finishing the entire Race together! WOO!
That means that the promise I had the same hope for was for me too!
When teams were announced, I had no doubt that this promise would be fulfilled. The women on my team are sold out for Jesus, bold in their faith, solid in their identity in Christ, lovers of scripture and teaching, and passionate about bringing the Kingdom of God.
As we came together to discuss our new team name, values, and vision, Jess shared this same vision she had from the Lord with the team. All of us were on the same page and pumped about the Harvest God promised her (and us), so the 6 of us became the “International Harvesters”.
To read what the Harvest means and is all about, you’ll have to read what Jess wrote in her blog, “MEET MY NEW TEAM!!!” Plus you can learn more about my teammates with her little Q&A profiles on each of us. Please check it out!
Also, my teammate Anna put together a video interview of the 6 of us talking about what one word we would use to describe the Race, our funniest moment, and what we are hoping for the last 3 months of the Race. So watch the video below!
Stay tuned for my next blog post talking about this awesome team and what God is doing in us and through us so far in Cambodia!
