After Christmas, H squad met up in Pattaya, Thailand for a week of debrief before heading on to Cambodia. This was a time to rest and process the past few months as well as meet with our squad leaders, coaches, and mentors as a team and discuss team dynamics and how the past month went. Pattaya is a beach town, so it was so nice to spend time on the beach and hanging out with my squad mates. We were in Pattaya over New Year’s as well, and experiencing New Year’s on the beach with lanterns and fireworks and tons of people was definitely a New Year’s I won’t forget.
Towards the end of debrief something really exciting, nerve-racking, and somewhat expected happened…we had team changes! Our squad raised up two team leaders to be squad leaders for the rest of the race. Because of this, some teams needed to be switched around, and our leaders want us to grow through community by experiencing new teammates. So my Mountain Movers team was split up along with a few other teams and new teams were formed.
Introducing team Borderlands!
From left to right…..Kyle (bottom), Landon, Me, Melissa, Natalie, Chris, and Heidi (center)
I am so excited to be on this team! This is a diverse team of personalities and I am really looking forward to learning from them all. One thing that I want to learn is being confident in my voice and speaking up, knowing that my opinion matters and what I have to say is worth saying. It’s funny, because team Borderlands is a team of talkative, opinionated people! It’s going to stretch me, but I honestly can’t wait. This team holds a lot of wisdom and love, and I know this season with them is going to lead to growth for all of us. We are called Borderlands because we want to stand in the gap (border) between unbelievers and the Lord. We want to be a team that connects those we reach out to with their Father.
This month, my team and I are just outside of Siem Reap, Cambodia living and teaching at a Christian school. We teach English, Bible, and Computer classes to grades 1-9 from 7am to 5pm. We also lead devotions with the kids in the morning, mostly performing skits as “The Skittle Ones”, and devotions in the evenings with the children and staff who live at the school. The days are long, but they are fulfilling. I posted in Laos about teaching and how uncomfortable it makes me, but I am actually really enjoying teaching fulltime this month. We are each teaching about 4 classes a day by ourselves, which I thought would be harder for me than it is. We realized quickly after the first day that we cannot do this month by ourselves, that we need God’s strength and creativity to get us through, especially for those like me who don’t know a thing about making lessons or teaching English to kids who only know their ABC’s.
We are excited about this month and getting to know the kids and pour into the staff here! Please keep the school in your prayers as they are having financial trouble and need provision. Also keep my team in your prayers for health and vulnerability with each other.
