At the end of an amazing month of seeing God’s abundant provision, experiencing his church and his love in new ways we arrived in Sofia. We spent the weekend fellowshipping together as a squad and it was here that we were told about the changes that were being made in our squad. My team leader, Tamica was being moved to squad leader as were Mike and Denise Murphy. Along with these changes came some pretty substantial shake ups in all the teams. From Kingdom Unity Joe and Dez moved to a team called Sophia, Matt moved to a team called Fanatic, Stacy, Lauren and I moved to a team called Oasis.
This was by far the hardest thing for me to face so far on the race. When the new teams were announced, it hit me that I would not be doing daily life with Tamica, Dez, Matt and Joe and I was heart-broken. As much as I was excited about the opportunity to get to know 4 new people, learn to work under Paul’s leadership and to get into this new team that would become Oasis, I really did not want to face the change that was coming.
My new team consists of Paul Iwanaga, Casey and Erin Scritchfield, Ashley Higgins, Lauren Williamson, and Stacy Povian.
They are great. I got to keep two people from Kingdom Unity which has been a blessing, and Ashley and Paul were with our team in Romania. Then there is Casey and Erin who I have not yet worked with at all, but was super excited about getting to know because they are an awesome couple.
So without further ado, let me introduce to you my new team…
Paul is from Oklahoma. He was a high school computer teacher and coach in his former life. He is an awesome man who is seeking to bring Kingdom and is ever so willing to be broken for that to happen in his own life.
Casey and Erin are one of the two married couples on our squad. Casey was raised in Colorado and Erin was raised in Pennsylvania. She was a P.E. teacher and he did a bunch of different types of construction work. They met in San Diego where they were both living before embarking on this crazy race.
Ashley is from Missouri. She is one of the most passionate people about bringing Kingdom I have met. She speaks truth and there is no denying that the Lord is speaking through her.
Lauren is from Victoria, Texas. She is the only other Aggie on my squad and we have ended up on the same team. We reminisce on chips and salsa often (except for that one day when we actually got it). She has a real heart for bringing the love of Jesus to young children, especially those in Africa.
Stacy is from Florida. She is one of the most loving and compassionate people I have ever met. Everything about her reflects the Lord’s love for his people.
Then there is me.
We make up team Oasis. We are definitely a different team than Kingdom Unity, JoHoLo, or Goodness Gracious. We relate to each other differently, we conduct ministry differently, we are different, but that is a good thing. Casey wrote a blog about this that you should definitely check out. Something I talked about a lot coming into the race was wanting to be uncomfortable (granted, I thought that would look more like me going without food or sleeping in a goat field than having my heart ripped out), but I did/do want that. I want to be grown and I was grown a lot in Kingdom Unity, but in order for me to continue to grow I needed to be in a different environment.
So here I am, making good on the promise to be uncomfortable.
We are growing together as a team fantastically. It has been really cool to watch/be a part of this team becoming a family. I am excited to see how God grows each of us in the coming months and how He uses team Oasis to send forth His Kingdom to the world.
