Team Atlas,
When we first found out that we were a team at training camp, I couldn’t think about anything else except for the fact that they chose me as the team leader. All I could think was, “How am I suppose to lead a team with so much wisdom?” It was during my listening prayer, when I was asked to pray about deciding to step in to the role, that I realized it was an opportunity for growth. And boy was that the case. I have learned so much about leadership and what servant leadership looks like over the last five months.
Month one in Serbia seems like just the other day, but when I think about all that we have been through together, it feels like forever ago. I can’t help but to become emotional thinking about our time together. The good times and the hard times, the fun times and the overwhelming times. God blessed us to be a family during our first five months of the race, and I am forever grateful for our time together.
Out of everything I’ve learned during our time together, the most prevalent is pressing in, and that decision to press in being a product of love. There were so many times I wanted to give up. I couldn’t stand knowing that I had failed you guys. My main thought being, “It would just be easier to quit trying and that way I couldn’t fail you…”
What a lie from the devil. Being able to mess up is the very reason I was given this opportunity to lead this team. This whole experience is about our growth in our walk with Christ. Messing up is even more reason to press in because I have a family surrounding me, ready to call me higher and encourage me. That fact always brought me back to the love that we have as a family.
New teams will not change the dynamic of our relationship, and I am looking forward to watching us grow in love and community with our new teams. Same building, just a different room.
I want to end this letter by saying thank you. Thank you for teaching me what it truly means to live in community. Thank you for showing me what it means to press in during the hard times. Thank you for calling me higher and truly wanting God’s best for me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to lead and extending me grace along the way.
Your family forever,
Thomas Dosson Stubblefield II
