For the past few days Colin and I have been in Atlanta for Launch. What is Launch? It has been a time of more specific and tangible training, beautiful direction of what to hope for during the World Race, a special goodbye with our dear parents, and a bunch of firsts with our amazing team!
We have learned hands-on logistics and finance training as Colin is our team’s humble team leader and I am the team treasurer. We had an incredibly informative and eye-opening session over health, safety and risk management. We continued our practice of giving and receiving feedback with our teammates, an integral part of living and serving together. And above all, we were ushered into this season of adventure by being reminded of the importance of prayer, boldness, thanksgiving, humility, and freedom with responsibility.
Another amazing thing about Launch is that parents are invited! As pictured in our previous blog post, our wonderfully loving parents came to support us, find out more about where their dear children are going, and say their final farewells before we leave the states. We were able to pray together, spend precious moments together, and introduce them to our team.
And speaking of our team… We were reunited with the newly named Team Oaks this week!!! Here they are!
We were able to experience some firsts this week… We lived on a budget of $5 per person per day for food (thank you dollar store groceries). We walked around College Park, GA asking the Lord to lead us in the direction of someone to serve and pray for, and we did our laundry together for the first time! Haha! We are truly starting this adventure together, and I could not be more excited to be on a team with these fantastic people. Their hearts are raw for the Lord and what He has waiting for us overseas! I can’t wait to serve with them and learn from them during our journey.
And to start off our journey, we’re leaving Atlanta in just a few short hours with the entire Q squad!! We will take a 13.5 hour flight straight to Tokyo, have a short layover, take a 6 hour flight to Bangkok, and then take an 11 hour bus ride to our ministry site in Chiang Mai, Thailand! Ah! Hope to be able to update you again once we’re there!!
Until then!
