As I sit here typing this, I am flabbergasted that this month is halfway over. As you sit on your side of the screen reading, you probably have a lot of questions about life for me right now. There have been quite a few changes in my World Race life.
First, you might have noticed that I am no longer part of Team Meno. At debrief last month, our leaders made some adjustments to our teams. Since beginning the Race in January, my squad has lost a couple of people so some of the teams were relatively small. And, it was time for squad leaders to be raised up from our existing squad. Plus, by month 4, our leaders had a better understanding of us as people. They saw that some of the team assignments from training camp may no longer be the best fit. So, I’m now a member of Chasing the Deep! The Team Meno girls (Amy, Carrie, Civanna and I) stayed together and we were blessed by the addition of Taylor. My teammate Chris is now our team leader and we added an international constituent to our team: A Canadian named Jeff! Check out their blogs on the left side of the page.
You also might be wondering what in the world I am doing! Our team is in Kibuna, Estonia working at a place called the Village of Hope. The Village of Hope is a 10 month rehabilitation program for men recovering from alcohol and drug addictions. As part of the program, the men live in community with one another, attend daily classes, share meals together and work in a saw mill. Throughout this month, we are sharing in that alongside them. We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to get to know these men over meal times and during work.
At the beginning of the month, I was a little hesitant. I don’t feel particularly drawn toward men’s ministry and manual labor is not necessarily my thing. But, this is turning out to be one of my favorite months of the Race so far. The men here are precious and genuinely love each other and are authentically pursuing recovery and the Lord. The work is hard but good and I think that we’ve probably stacked about a thousand logs at this point. It’s great to have structure in our day and it’s been so cool to start off this new season as a team in a place filled with so much love.
I encourage you to check out the Village of Hope website. Each day here has truly been full of joy for me and I’m excited to share with you all some of the things I’ve been learning this month.
Please continue to pray for unity for team Chasing the Deep and intentional conversations with the men here. And, look out for a less logistical blog sometime in the next week!
