I’m sitting in the airport in San Salvador, El Salvador writing this blog, which means, yes, I’m back in Central America! I feel like a large part of my heart is hanging out somewhere between the Mexico/Guatemala border and the Panama Canal, so I’m really excited for these next two months. On that note, there are some changes I should inform everyone of before we start this next season.
Month 4 of the World Race is a typical time to expect significant changes because that is when our squad leaders raise up new squad leaders to replace them. We spent a couple days in Lima together as a squad to learn about these changes. At the end of this month Lindsay and Bethany will be going back to the States, and we will be led by three new leaders: our former Kaleo team leader, Jeremiah Jackson, Vanessa O’Neal, and Tiffany Johnson. They will cast the vision for our squad for the rest of the race, and their role will now be to travel around, visiting the teams to challenge and encourage them.
Because all three of them were team leaders, their new position change has caused several other changes. Every team has changed in some way, but I’ll just explain our team to you. Team Kaleo is no more, but we are so grateful for the three months we got to spend together and for the friendships we made. Some of us are still together, but we have a new leader, a new team, and a new name.
So, I would like to introduce: Team Wreckonciled
Our new team leader is the lovely, talented, and hilarious Joy Robertson. Joy has grown so much over the past three months, and she is the perfect person to lead our team into this new season.
In addition to saying goodbye to Jeremiah, we are also bidding “see you later” to Jeff. Jeff has kept us organized, entertained, and scientifically educated for the past three months, and we can’t imagine our team without him, but he’s going to do great things on Team Quiet Storm.
The members continuing from Team Kaleo 2.0 other than Joy are Tiffany Prater, Katie Chestnutt, Brent Frederick, and me. Finally, we have a new member, Mr. Joel Dutton, formerly of Team Dunamis. Joel is creative, hilarious, and is going to add a lot to our team dynamic.
Our first task as a new team was to choose a name. On the World Race, team names are meant to be prophetic callings for a team. Kaleo, which in Greek means “called,” and in Hawaiian means “the voice,” was very prophetic and powerful for us, so we wanted a name that would be equally amazing for this new team. The name we settled on is Team Wreckonciled. For many of us, the World Race has been a time of personally wrecking us and our identity (separate blog soon to come on that). We want to learn to walk in our new identities together as a team, but we also want to go out into the world and reconcile people and places to God and his love for them. So, we are Team Wreckonciled.
Here are a few of our first team pictures:
The beginning of what will hopefully be a beautiful Bromance…
Also, speaking of changes, our route has changed as well. After this month in Nicaragua, instead of going to Guatemala we will be going to El Salvador. Those of you who know me can imagine my disappointment since Guatemala is so special to me, but El Salvador is where we are supposed to be going…more about this in aforementioned blog soon to come. For the month of April Team Wreckonciled will be in the city of Chinandega, Nicaragua working with an organization called Vision Nicaragua. Once we arrive, learn more about the organization, and get settled, I’ll post more about what our ministry will look like. Until then, thank you for your love, and please include my former teammates and my new one in your prayers.
