I’m a tad behind in announcing this, but at the end of last month, we had team changes again! My new team is filled with people I love, so the transition has gone pretty well. It’s difficult though because this is “Manistry/Wo-Manistry” month– so the guys are all together doing manly things up in Chang Mai, and the girls are doing their own things all around Thailand. So we haven’t really gotten to experience the whole team yet, but so far, the female portion is fantastic– I’m having a blast with these three girls in Pattaya, Thailand.
This name made me so happy for several reasons:
1) I have always loved trees– they are beautiful, powerful, graceful, and there is just something kind of mythical and archaic about them. I don’t really like big cities because there aren’t enough trees. Plus I spent my childhood climbing in them 🙂
2) The Lord has been using tree imagery constantly in what He’s been teaching me. Jeremiah 17:7-8 has been HUGE for me in the last few months, which talks about the tree planted beside the water and never stops producing fruit. We want our team to have our roots firmly planted in the Lord, always allowing Him to produce fruit through us.
3) Sequoia trees are especially incredible because they are HUGE. If you do a google image search for sequoias, it’ll blow your mind. Most of the pictures are just of the bottom 20 feet of the trunk because the trees are so huge you can’t fit them in the picture. Right now the tallest on record is over 379 feet– 37 stories high.
4) Sequoia roots reach out laterally and form a root system underground, connecting all of the trees. That is what we are doing this year– connecting with Believers around the world, supporting them and aiding in producing fruit.
5) It just sounds freaking cool. 🙂
Andrea wrote a wonderful blog introducing all of the new members of Team Sequoia, and I have like three other blogs I need to work on, so I’ll just borrow the intros from her 🙂 The pictures and captions are mine, but the descriptions I just stole directly from Andrea.
Canada. Ashley was on Team Glow with [Andrea] the first 3 months of the race
while we were in Europe. She is an extremely sweet, thoughtful and wise
woman of God with a lot of love to give. We’ve had some great chats
while running through Ukraine and Romania. She’s grown a ton during her
time in Africa, and I cannot wait to finish this race with her!
Ash, one of the most precious people I’ve ever met, inside and out
strong, bold, fun loving woman of God that I know I can learn so much
from. We’ve only been working together for three weeks, and already I’ve been able to see what a rockstar she is in ministry. It’s as easy as breathing for her! She just pours out love to everyone she meets and finds ways to serve them almost instantly. I am so pumped to have her on our team!
laugh all the time and seems to have a never-ending source of joy. We
push each other all the time in ministry, and even when we’re just
hanging out we constantly egg each other on (“When are we ever going to
have a chance to eat fried grubs again?? If we don’t eat this
road-goat, we’re always going to wonder what it tastes like. It woud be
kinda sweet to be able to say we survived malaria in Africa… Just buy
it and then you can always tell people you bought this in Tanzania!”).
I love her sense of adventure, and she always has such an incredible
attitude about whatever curveball is being thrown at us.
also on Team Redemption and has tons to offer to the team. He’s been
called, ‘John the Baptist’ on more than one occasion for the wisdom he
has. Not to mention the joy he finds in skinning goats in Kenya- don’t
worry we ate them for dinner after. Jonathan
is extremely considerate and thoughtful of the girls on the team. He
has a solid relationship with the Lord that he is always looking to
deepen and strengthen which pushes us all to more. So happy to have him
on Team Sequoia!
Team Redemption! Hooray! Nathan is an outgoing, quick witted, natural
leader and I’m so pumped to have him on the team again. He’s also one
of our squad leaders and we’re blessed to be able to encourage him
however we can as he pushes the squad into where the Lord’s leading us
next. The Lord’s given him a gift of insight and vision for the team
and squad which he’s walking into more each day. The Lord’s blessed him
with a powerful and influential voice that he’ll change a lot of lives
with during and after the race. Another bonus- he knows that nothing
beats a good dad joke to make me smile J
