You want to know what’s even funnier than the title of this blog post? I actually think I could post a whole blog of me just laughing. Because that’s about how I feel. If you somehow have a good enough memory to take you back to one of my last blogs from Ghana, you may remember I posted about becoming team leader and how I couldn’t believe I had been asked to team lead and wasn’t expecting it. On May 28, my team arrived at mini debrief where we all knew about upcoming team changes. I was nervous of course and sad about no longer being with the team I’d been with for the last five months, but I was so excited to bring all I’d learned from my old team to my new team. I was prepared to be a team leader and I was prepared to not be a team leader. With the team changes, it was simply unknown if I would still hold that position, but in my heart, I felt okay with either outcome. What I was totally, completely, 110% unprepared for was the question I was asked before our first session.
Jessica, will you be a squad leader?
***Side note before you get really confused. We currently have four alumni squad leaders who are with us for the first six months of the Race. At mini debrief, four people from my squad were raised up to take the place of the alumni squad leaders who will go home at the end of this month. A squad leader is not on any specific team (there are 5 teams on my Squad) but goes from team to team to help support them. The main ministry of a squad leader is the squad, so although squad leaders still may go to ministry some days, their focus is on the team and loving and supporting them so the teams can fully focus on the ministry they have for the month.
So back to the question of whether I will be a squad leader or not. No. Please no. Please please no. First of all, me and my team had been discussing for a while who on the squad we thought would be the squad leaders. I had my guesses, and I never one time thought it could possibly in a hundred years be me. Unmmmm me? Are you sure? I thought the team leader thing caught me off guard, but it was nothing compared to how unprepared I felt for being asked to squad lead. Are you sure you asked the right Jessica? I mean there are three others on the squad so maybe God meant one of them. That has got to be it. But leadership has spent weeks praying into this and I kept getting highlighted as a squad leader. To be 100% honest with you? Do I want to squad lead? No. Not really. I wanted to be a normal World Racer and not have any extra responsibilities on top of the already overwhelming emotions and situations that tend to come with an 11-month mission trip to 11 different countries. You know? Like missing home, doing a different ministry every month, moving around constantly, living in community, struggling through growth. And now there’s more?
As I wrestled through the decision with God for quite some time on the balcony of our apartment overlooking Kuala Lumpur, I felt no peace. Saying no didn’t feel right but neither did saying yes. I felt like saying yes meant me sacrificing my dreams and everything I was hoping for in the next six months of the Race. But I felt like saying no was me being selfish and taking the easy way out because I didn’t like the thought of so much unknown and so much discomfort and so much potential sacrifice. I mean it could be super amazing, but it could also be super awful. What if I fail? What if everyone’s disappointed that I’m a squad leader? What if I hate it? What about all the things I’d been so looking forward to in being with a new team? What if I’m ‘homeless’ as a squad leader because I am moving from team to team?
After all the questions, my answer was yes. I guess I will squad lead for the last six months of my Race. Do I feel 100% pumped about it right now? No, not really. Do I trust God will eventually confirm this is where I’m supposed to be? I keep praying and begging him to! Do I trust God will bring good out of my saying yes regardless of whether or not yes was the right answer? Absolutely. Even if I was wrong in saying yes, I know fully in my heart that God will still use these next six months and bring growth out of it.
So for now, I am grieving the loss of what I thought my next six months would look like, and I am still trying to figure out why God led me to this place, but I am also ready to dive in and not look back. Yes, this is not particularly what I wanted, but there is some reason for it, and I’m not going to waste the next six months moping about it. For all I know, being a squad leader could be the best thing that has ever happened to me! So here goes. I already thought I was jumping into the unknown going on the World Race in the first place, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, that was only the beginning!!!!!
Meet my new fellow squad leaders, the River Otters!
