At the beginning of March, Ashlyn came up to me while we were at LDW (Leadership Development Weekend) and asked if I would like to help with Travel Day at the end of that month. Little did I know that when I said, “Sure, I would love to!” that it would change how the rest of my Race looked.
Ashlyn is one of my fellow Racers who makes up half of our logistics team. Logistics is a team of two Racers that oversee maneuvering our squad of 34 people from country to country. This means they are responsible for finding transportation, handling visas, planning debrief locations, booking hostels, getting new sim cards for phones, changing money at times, dealing with a lot of people on behalf of the squad, and 100 other things. The only thing they don’t do is book flights. They love our squad well and work hard on our behalf.
Making a border crossing/traveling in another country with 30-ish white Americans is kind of daunting. We stick out like nothing else and a good number of people think we don’t know anything and are made of money. As the Travel Day grew closer, I got a little nervous about helping lead the move from Zambia to Malawi but was excited!
The trip ended up being crazy and one of the weirdest 24 hours I think we have had when it comes to travel as a squad. Our bus drivers didn’t show up until 11pm when we expected them at 6pm, they only stopped 2 times in 18 hours, our drivers asked for bribes multiple times, they only listened to the men on our squad and not the women, they broke their contract after a three-hour negotiation/fight at night in a sketchy ally leaving us stranded 2/3 of the way to our destination and so much more. It was stressful, but there was this sense of joy and calm over the whole day or so for me. It was weird but also amazing.
When we reached our location is when my Race truly changed. Ashlyn came up to me again and asked if I would consider becoming her co-logistics leader for the squad. (Her co-logistics leader up to that point was called back to the States.) After a lot of prayer, looking at how much joy and peace there was while leading, and conversations with several people, I accepted!
Being logistics takes up a lot of time and will/has become part of my ministry every month. It is a big opportunity to serve our squad well and to reach out to people all over the world who I’ll have to contact about transportation in the different countries. Travel days and logistics will become part of my ministry days. I get a lot of joy from loving people on travel days, solving puzzles, making checklists, and asking God to move, all of which are part of logistics.
I am excited about this change in my Race. It will be a challenge for sure. It will grow my patience, my ability to communicate, change how I love people, and much more. I think the biggest thing I will get to learn will be how to lead with love and an open hand. I want to love people and see people as God sees people on travel days. It’s going to be crazy but I am looking forward to it.
My first official travel days as logistics will be April 26-28th. As these and other travel days happen, I would value your prayers! The three areas I can use prayer in are:
- That I will learn to serve/lead the squad with humility and grace as Christ would have done.
- That I would learn to rely on God as I look for transport and speak to people. He uses travel days as ministry days, too.
- Lastly, that I would learn to stay present when I am doing ministry and in each country. I am always working on the next month’s ministry travel and destination but don’t want to miss the ministry God is doing in the country I am in.
It’s funny how God brings change when I least expect it or look for it. Even though I didn’t expect it, I am excited to see how God will work over the next 5 month through this change. It will be, and is, good.
Blessing,
Elise
