Well here we are at the end of the month (I now measure months by what country I’m in, not by a calendar), and at the end of the first 3 months of the WR (!!!), and so it’s time for some squad changes.
At the end of the next month our squad leaders, Joshua and Megan will be leaving us. As two who have completed the race before they joined us for the first four months of the trip to get us on our feet and then leave us to it. So raised up to replace them are Nick and Christin, who will be travelling around with them and learning from them during our time in Mozambique. This also means team leadership has changed a bit – two others of our squad have handed over their roles too and now Marian, Kristin and Majil are in new leadership positions (team leaders and a logistics leader). And since team leadership has changed, team structures have changed. We now have four teams of seven and two teams of six, where before we had seven teams in total we now have six.
So, without further ado: Introducing Team Siloam:
Dusty (Team Leader), Raquel (Finance), Ann, Jenn, Amanda, Michelle. .
You may notice my team name and pictures down the left have changed – as have the links so you can get to the blogs for each of them.
We joked that that our team should be called Fuego de Rescued Hope, because we have members from Fuego de Dios (Michelle and Amanda), Rescued Identity (Dusty and Jenn) and HOPE (Ann, Raquel and I). But obviously we want to be our own entity and have a name that speaks about who we are, what we stand for and what we want to walk in to.
So instead, we spent time together talking about what God was doing in each of us and reflected that we had each shared something about the ways that we were being drawn deeper into freedom from things by God – whether that be from expectations, from fear, from pride, from spiritual attack or otherwise.
We started thinking about a team name that would reflect deepness and thought of a wellspring, and so we came to the story of Jesus healing the blind man. Check out John 9 for the full story, but in it Jesus challenges the cultural belief that it was this man’s fault to be in the position he was in and showed that he should be helped. He puts a mud paste on the man’s eyes and tells him to wash in the Pool of Siloam, where the man is healed. As such, we want to be a group who challenges cultural assumptions of the poor and needy, helping them where others nearby aren’t. We want to be Jesus to them in that situation and direct them to their healing in Jesus, the Water of Life. The man who is healed subsequently speaks out for Jesus to all around him, which we want to be doing, but also have those we influence do as we move on.
Not only that, but the word Siloam means “sent”, which of course we believe we are this year. We have been called by God to this year and to these places, and we have been sent out by our churches, families and friends.
We look forward to walking into the next 8 months together, having had the last month to get to know each other by being in the same ministry. Please pray for us as we step out, that we would bond together, grow together and bless everywhere we go.
P.S. I've added a video to the 'South African Highlights' blog two posts ago, completed by Jess and Matt from our squad – go take a look 🙂
