I have now officially been in Asia for 7 days, which is crazy if I actually take a few minutes and think about it. Along with an entirely new continent , time-zone and culture , I have a new team as well. Team Hepzibah has been left behind with the Spanglish, homemade tortillas and Central American smiles.
When they announced the possibility of team changes at our last debrief in Nicaragua, uneasy emotions flooded over our squad. The possibility of being taken away from this family that we had learned to love over the last few months, this family that has seen us at our best and worst, this family who has helped begin the process of walking through all of the crap in our lives in order to step out more beautiful on the other side. This family was the only thing that had become a constant and comfort in this crazy adventure we are on, and the thought of having that taken away was certainly a little bit disheartening.
Team Hepzibah started as seven girls in Guatemala. Month two we became five as one went home in hopes of restarting the race at a later time and another left temporarily to seek the medical attention she needed for her neck injury. Month three came and went with refinement as our trying theme, and as a result the five of us grew closer through our struggles.
So that brings us to team change. L squad in one night went from 9 to 8 teams and now has 3 all girls teams. My team added one wonderful woman, Kaitlin Keyes. After the news, and relief set it, came the almost equally as challenging part: New teams, mean new team names.
Now that may sound a little silly but the name Hepzibah has come to mean a lot to me over the past 3 months. Hepzibah, My Delight is in Her, has been a truth that I have had to speak over myself every day. It's a truth that each day I begin to believe a tiny bit more, as more and more of my identity becomes rooted in my Savior, I have more and more confidence that His delight is in me.
Our new team spent some time in prayer and I argued with the Lord about having to part with one of the only things I felt was constant on this race so far.
Daughter, my delight will be in you whether or not this is your team name.
Feeling slightly comforted, I continued praying. After a few minutes, one of my teammates said that the Lord had put Ezekiel 37 on her heart. Which we quickly realized had been spoken over many of our teammates and our whole squad multiple times in the last few months.
Ezekiel 37: The Valley of Dry Bones.
" Prophesy to these bones and say to them, Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet- a vast army" ( Ezekiel 37: 4 & 10)
Something about this story just makes me come alive. The fact that the Lord can take dry dead useless bones, and breath life into them sends chills down my spine. Especially when I realize that is exactly what He has done to me, what He has done to everyone on our team. He has taken us from the places where we were dead and dry and broken and spoken life into us. The places that we thought couldn't be healed or were too far damaged He has revived and made new again as only the Almighty could do.
Well great that gave us a passage that we were all passionate about but neither Ezekiel 37 or Dry Bones make particularly good team names. With a little more prayer and word play we decided on Redemption Valley.
Redemption Valley because that is exactly what the Lord did through Ezekiel to the dry bones in the valley that day. He took something that had been deemed useless and redeemed them into vessels that He could use for His glory. That is also exactly what the Lord is in the process of doing through each one of us daily and there is no place I would rather be.
