Sorry for the long update but
we have not had great access to internet this past month so I am going to write
one long blog to try to catch everyone up 🙂
Emotional rollercoaster! The
first week of the month was a whirlwind of emotions. Leaving Ghana I was on a
spiritual high! The last two weeks there were nuts. The two traditionalists
giving their lives over to Christ made my month. It was also so good to sow
seeds in a couple Rastafarians and pouring into all our Christian friends
before we left.
Will, Mike and I got to take
the guys to the pool on the last day. Of the 10 university students that came
with us, only one knew how to swim! It was weird to see a 22 year old man
struggling to doggy paddle. I even made my first lifeguard save. I didn’t expect
to be making any saves as the guys are 6 feet tall and the pool was only 7 feet
deep at its deepest. Emanual only jumped off the bottom once before just
putting one hand up in defeat waiting for me to save him 🙂
Team 180 was the healthiest
it had ever been coming into the debrief the beginning of this month. We had
all walked through tough times but had come out on top. We had truly achieved
our goal of creating a healthy, loving family. We had walked alongside each
other for 7 straight months, through the ups and downs. We got to see each
others mountain top moments and each others ugly broken moments. We lifted each
other up when someone was down. We were vulnerable with each other. And through
it all they had grace with me as I learned how to best lead them.
We started admiring the
family we had built and started talking about our reunion ski trip and how it
is going to be so hard to say goodbye to each other in 4 months when God sped
up the process. We now had to say good bye in 2 days.
God had been speaking to our squad leaders, Weston, Jory, and
Katie, about changing up the teams for several months. They prayed constantly
making sure they heard God right. Changing the teams would not be easy. There
were 7 teams, 7 families, that had been established over the 7 months. The
teams had literally spent 24 hrs a day together and knew everything about each
other. The teams had gotten comfortable. But as the saying goes “God is more
concerned with our character than our comfort.” So True.
It was extremely hard to say
goodbye to the team I had grown to love so much but I knew the change was from
God and that he had a perfect plan to go along with the change.
When the teams were switched
up it also meant new team leaders. Two of my girls Melina and Kelsi became new
team leaders which made me soo proud. I stepped down from team leader of 180 and stepped into a new
role of Squad Logisitics. My new role is to work with the other Squad
Logisitics, Andy Ross, to plan and book all the lodging and transportation for
the squad of 42 members. We are also responsible for collecting and consolidating
all the receipts from all the teams to sent back to AIM at the end of each
month. This role is going to challenge me over the next three months in many
different ways than the team leader position did. I am excited to see how God
is going to work in me through this service for the team.
I have been with my new team,
Team Phoenix Vibe, for one whole month. I have been so thankful to God for the
people that He blessed me with. I think the change created a fresh spark that
was needed all across the squad.
I am super excited to
introduce my new team to you! From left to right: Caiti Fadness 21yrs old from
Idaho, Amy Davidson 22yrs old from Georgia, Tim Carlson 22yrs old from
Minnesota, Chelsea Wonders 27 yrs old from Arizona, our leader April Duncan 24
yrs old from Pennsylvania and me 24 years old from Colorado.
