Month 7 on the race has come with a lot more change than a new country.
Last week, I said a 5 month goodbye to my sweet friend Shawna as she went home to get the medical treatment that she needs to fully recover from her neck injury. I also said goodbye to Steph, Merbs, Mands, Sage and Kaitlyn for the next month. These are the sweet ladies that I have spent the last 6 months living, serving, fighting, growing, changing, and loving with. So to say that goodbye was hard is an understatement. These girls have been my family away from home and I am so thankful for all of these incredible women of God. They have seen me at my best and worst as I have processed through pains of my past, learned lessons in love from my Savior, and seen heartbreaking stories of children across the nations. These women have shaped me more than I can describe and I consider myself so blessed to be called their sister. Yet overtime, everything changes. And change as I learned many months ago is one of the only things that is actually constant. Change can be what you make it: and my heart is set on growing, surrendering, and knowing more of my Daddy, so what better place to start than a new team with new stories, new lessons, and new characteristics of Christ to share.
SO that brings me to Cambodia: Meet The Sheila's my new team.
We come from 6 different teams, which means each of our last six months have looked very different. We have been at different ministry sites and countries at times, experienced different heartaches and joys, and functioned very differently concerning our team norms.
The awesome part is we are all at a place where we want to be challenged and grow. And there is no better place than on a new team, where any comfort zone we had built up on the race has been torn down. It is bizarre being in a place and not really feeling known again…but it is also really perfect, because its the best opportunity to step fully into the changes that have occurred in each of us the last 6 months. This week we have been sharing stories and getting to know each others past and hearts. It has been such a privilege to be let into their vulnerable places so that we can help encourage each other as women of Christ.
Picking our name round 3 has looked a lot differently than the first two which we came up with after a lot of prayer. This time during our first team somebody jokingly threw out The Sheila's and it just kind of stuck. We and the team with us started calling us the Sheila's which is a slang term for girl in Australia. The reason I like this is because it is unique and spontaneous, two qualities that we have a lot on our team. My prayer is that we will use these characteristics to serve the Lord in ways that are new and out of our comfort zones, leaving room for more of His Kingdom to fall and His name to be glorified.
