As I have interacted with friends in family over the past few weeks there have been a few people eager to hear a follow up on what it was like to spend 9 months on the co ed team. I had written a blog titled “Excuse me Lord but WHAT?” on my initial response to being put on the co ed team and this is a follow up blog on what I learned from the co ed team.
To provide some context, I spent March through May on the co ed Freedom Fighters team. To express my less than excited feelings about being on the co ed team I spent about 80% of the time interacting with the women on Freedom Fighters and had minimal interaction with the men on my team. By the end of the time on our Freedom Fighters team everyone was getting their emotional needs met and we were not close as a team. As a team many of us were eager for upcoming team changes.
I showed up to Vietnam debrief at the beginning of month 5. My mentor had sent out an email saying that we were scheduled to have a team change and we would be finding out that weekend who our new teams were. I spent the entire weekend really eager and excited for my new all female team. When it came time to open the envelopes for our new teams I was shocked to find out I was on the co ed team AGAIN. I’m thinking are you kidding me? There are plenty of people who want to be on the co ed team and they are choosing the one person who has been eagerly awaiting being put on an all female team. I wish I could say I handled the news in a mature, God honoring way but that would not be true. I was angry, bitter, throwing a pity party, and sitting in the victim circle.
The next morning I went on the rooftop of our hostel in Ho Chi Minh City to spend some time complaining to God about my unfair circumstance. I was quick to inform God about how unfair my circumstances were, how I was eager for strong female friendships on my squad and how I would not see that happen this year, and how I missed my female friendships back home. There have only been a few instances in my life where I have heard the Lord speak clearly into my situations and I heard God speak to me in such a way that it was absolutely not my own voice of reason in my head. I heard God say to me, “I need you to jump into this new season with your new team with joy fully embracing what I have for you and I need you to see your new team with a clean slate without holding pre conceived notions about who I have made them to be.” And I thought to myself, are you kidding me? You want me to do WHAT? My initial response was resistance and excuses, but I heard the Lord clearly say I’ve got this if you trust me.
Something changed in me that morning in way I can’t fully explain. When I came downstairs I hugged one of the men on my team and said I was genuinely excited to be on his team. It was a change of heart that God alone could have done. I was eager and newly excited for what the Lord had for us in this season.
I’m happy to report I ended up spending seven months on the team LIT co ed team. There were no team changes done after month 5 Vietnam and we finished the Race together. It was not the team I ever would have chosen for myself, but the team I needed to be on and the team that would help me to grow the most.
From this experience I have learned how to move forward in life when life takes an unexpected detour. Many people have experienced an unwelcome detour; you didn’t get the new job you were hoping for, you got unexpectedly let go of a job you’ve been at for many years, you’ve been trying to have a child for many years and you have a miscarriage, the unwanted gift of singleness when all your friends continue to get engaged, the list goes on and on. I am learning in life to not avoid the detour, but how to see it as an opportunity and I’m thankful to say the opportunity to spend nine months on the co ed team ended up being a positive experience.
Some of the highlights of being with the men on team LIT was watching Carter, Lyle, and Johnathan’s passion to pursue the Lord and know scripture. I had the joy of watching them become more godly men throughout the year and watch them grow in incredible ways. Their hunger for scripture was a huge inspiration to me throughout the year and watching their pursuit of the Lord made me want to know the Lord on deeper levels. To the men of team LIT, thank you for showing me what it looks like to worship the Lord with an undivided heart and to have a continual desire to know more and more of who God is.
To the women of team LIT, Liv and Hannah, I am forever grateful for the many ways you have impacted and shaped my life. We called ourselves a small triangle because we are “same same but different” personality wise and it was incredible to watch us become a trio who functioned more like sisters than teammates in the ways we fought for each other, called each other higher, and stayed up way too late talking about life. Liv and Hannah are both loud, bold, confident, and amazing women after God’s own heart and taught me how to carry myself with a confidence that I never thought I could have. There were a number of times this year I would be quick to come up with an excuse about why I could not try something new and they would gently remind me the Lord was likely not interested in my excuses. I am super thankful for the deep, lifelong friendships I will have with these beautiful ladies who have spoken so much life over me and challenged me to be all that God made me to be.
So the next time when I get some surprise news in my life where I am tempted to throw my hands in the air and say excuse me Lord, but what my hope is that I jump in with a childlike faith of joy not being naive about the challenges of an unexpected detour in life, but embracing it head on.
