During the intensity of the world race, people learn to love and rely on one another – our team and squad – at a level that would never happen in the routine of life at home. There are stories people shared with me that my own best friends have never shared with me. Sharing the world race experience with this squad and my team, and being vulnerable with each other, has taught me to understand life and God in ways that I didn’t realize was possible before the race. I’m still in process. However, I plan to always try to be mindful and be open to all the ways a human can teach me. It has only been 5 months since I had agreed to do life with 5 complete strangers every day, but I’m so glad I did. Here is a letter I wrote to them that I am posting for the world to see!
Our team name was called Ahava: the Aramaic word for “Love.”
Dear Ahava,
It was a hot summer sweaty week when I met you all back in August of 2018. It was training camp for the World Race. I was so insecure about being there, comparing myself to all these other Christian people, and honestly was so nervous about having you all as a team since I hardly knew you all. As you already know, we didn’t connect right away. The six of us had completely different personalities, different preferences, and different ways to tackle different situations. Yet we continued to try to be a team in Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and Vietnam. We woke up to each other, slept right next to each other: either a few feet away in the same room, or directly on the floor in sleeping bags, or sleeping in the same bed. We shared bathrooms, shared every meal, every living space, even the time to commute to ministry and back. We did the same service work together, we prayed together, gave feedback together, had team time together and even shared our rest days and adventure days with each other! Like, what the heck? That is not normal. If you think about it – we were forced into intentional community basically 24/7. I think we all can agree, these past 4 months were HARD. Yet, they were so so good at the same time. Had I not have done life like that with you five, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I have learned so much about myself, about God, and about humanity. You challenged me to make clear decisions, to be more confident in myself, to be more intentional during direction giving, to be more self-aware and so much more.
I have also learned the value of giving people feedback, calling each other higher, and supporting each other through the process. I learned that being in an intentional team means being there for each other through EVERYTHING not just in ministry, but through our chores, through our internal struggles and even on our rest days when we are trying to coordinate bus routes and team money. I also learned to make specific time to HAVE FUN! It has been so fun to have random dance parties, laugh about random memes, make inside jokes, laugh at ourselves and our awkward comments. It was also so cool learning how to love you through your different love languages, enneagram numbers, your personalities and by trying to stay true to the team norms we have created from the beginning. Thank you for teaching me different ways to love.
I learned that being in a team is not only having the same goal and working together to achieve that goal, but in order to successfully work together, we must choose each other intentionally. If we are not on the same page of being intentional, then our team relationship and goal will not work out effectively. I have especially learned the importance of being intentional and letting people know that “I care about you. I want to have a deeper connection with you. I want you to know that I am available if you need me. How can I love you better? What can I do to take away this wall between us?” I paralleled that to my own relationship with God. He and I are in a relationship, a team, a partnership, a covenant, while he is also my father, friend, teacher and everything- and in order for our goal to be completed: receive, be and share His love to the world, then I need to be faithful to him and do my part for and with Him consistently. Like a community of love, a relationship with God is honest. It’s real. It’s vulnerable. It’s not having it all together, but being intentional and letting Him know where he needs to meet me. I can’t do life on my own, but I need God just like how I need a community. On the world race, my community is my team.
God is part of my team. I need to include him in my life like that. The way I was in a team on the world race, 24/7, is parallel to the way God is with me 24/7. The only difference is that I know he loves me unconditionally, he knows my every thought, fear, and sin. He is faithful to me everyday and has a plan for me. I know this, but I am not always faithful to him. I often get so caught up with my tasks, my needs, my thoughts and other stuff that it is easy to forget about Him. He revealed so much to me month 2 in Honduras and then month 3 of El Salvador I got distracted and chose not to spend intentional genuine time with him.
I’m learning I need to be intentional with God the way I needed to be intentional with all of you, my team. I need to be vulnerable with Him, invite Him in my struggle, and include Him in every part of my life the way being vulnerable with any human results to connection. I need to choose God the way I should have chose all of you. If I want love, I need to choose to love. Love is hard, love hurts, love is confusing and yet, we all need love. Love is learning how to do life with people in this world. Love is learning how to obey the command by Jesus: love your enemies. Love is choosing to takes initiative and learn about a person even when we don’t want to, even if we are scared to, or even if we don’t know how. Love is choosing to learn how to speak someone’s love language even when it’s not our own. Love is learning how to treat that person the way they want to be treated. Love is hard, but love is choosing to keep trying anyway. This goes for everyone. Our world would be a better place if all humans in the world chose to love out of our comfort: love our political, religious, ethnic, language, educational and so many more differences.
So moving forward in my new team, and in every human I encounter around the world, I want to learn how to commit each day to seeking to understand and choose to learn how to love them: choose to acknowledge their existence and assets, choose to ask them questions to get to know them, choose to praise them, choose to thank them, choose to confess when I did something wrong to them, choose to ask them for help, and choose to not give up on them. I need to do my part in a team the way I need to do my part with God. I understand this must be true in a marriage, friendship, a job and any community moving forward. Therefore, I will no longer just sit here and wait for God to give me answers to questions I am not intentionally asking him, just like I can’t sit here and wait for someone to come up to me, love and trust me if I’m not going out of my way to love that person either. These past few months have felt like there was a weird disconnect between God and I. I always thought it was something I was not doing. But being in a team 24/7, I have learned: I need to be intentional and honest with God. I need to be real and straight up tell God how I’m feeling and hurting the way I would tell another loved one how I am feeling. I need to own up to my part of the relationship I am lacking in, invite him in my life, thank him through the brokenness, praise him through the storm and acknowledge him everyday. I need to choose Him and choose to love even when it’s difficult. This is for God, my last team, new team, squad, family, friends, people I serve, and every human I meet moving forward. I want to learn how to choose to love you and fight for you.
“I may give away everything I have to help others, and I may even give my body as an offering to be burned. But I gain nothing by doing all this if I don’t have love. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud. Love is not rude, it is not selfish, and it cannot be made angry easily. Love does not remember wrongs done against it. Love is never happy when others do wrong, but it is always happy with the truth. Love never gives up on people. It never stops trusting, never loses hope, and never quits. Love will never end.”
– 1 Corinthians 13:3?-?8 ERV (Bible Verse)
So thank you, Team Ahava, for doing life with me these past 4 months in order for me to understand this profound truth of life. I am forever grateful for all the memories we have shared and all the different ways you have influenced me to be a better human to this world. Ahava you all so much! And I now feel more prepared for new changes, challenges, and opportunities to choose love.
Ahava,
Jasmine
_________
For all those reading this who are not my teammates, here are a few updates!
I am currently on a new team of women from my squad. We are called: LIONESS. I am really excited!
We are currently serving in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We are partnering with YWAM and teaching English, Bible Studies, Life Skills and games in a underserved village an hour away from the city. It is very hot and sweaty, and the culture reminds me a bit of India with the many Buddhist and Hindu architecture. I am still fundraising. Adventures in Mission is thankfully giving me grace even though I did not make the January 31st deadline of being fully funded. So I am still trying to seek ways to fundraise the rest of the $3,584. Please keep all of this in prayer: fundraising, new teams and new ways to impact the village we are teaching in. Thank you all so much for reading this and being a part of my journey!
