It’s the end of month 4 and there is a possibility that within our squad of 52 people on the race we may be changing teams around before we begin month 5.
You may or may not know my teammates, but here are some letters I’ve written to them and I hope they give you a better glimpse at who they are, why I love them and what we’re all learning this year.
Dear Malia,
You bring so much laughter and value to our team! You know when to have fun and when to be serious and I appreciate that about you. You are such a good listener and I love getting the chance to talk to you one on one and hearing your perspective and outlook on life and different situations. You are silly and fun to be around but you have a lot of wisdom as well!
Thank you for pushing our team and challenging us to go deeper, to work harder and to be mindful of the people around us. Some things I have learned and am still learning from you are, how to not take myself too seriously, not to care so much what other people might think of me, to embrace who I AM, integrity, honestly, how to know myself better and to know when its ok to say no and to take it easy. There are many more things but I’ll save those to be just between you and I! Thank you for being you and for not being afraid to speak truth into my life and our teammates lives. You’ve been a great team leader so far and I can’t wait to see the journey the Lord continues to take you on throughout the rest of the race. Love you Malia!
Love,
KiKi
Courtney,
I don’t even know where to begin! I don’t think a friendship has caught me more off guard before. Truthfully, at training camp when we found out our team, I never thought you and I would be friends and I thought our personalities would clash so much. Those thoughts couldn’t have been further from the truth! You are an incredible friend to me and a wonderful teammate and I’m so glad we are both part of team Hesed! You have such a huge passion and desire for learning and growing and knowing the Lord better and more fully. It inspires me so much! You are a blast to be around and I know I could go to you with anything I needed to get off my chest or needed advice on.
You bring laughter, light, humor, rawness, and life to our team! I love when you bust out your tunes and truthfully, the alien alarm clock you have going off every morning is pretty great.
I’m so thankful for the music you blare and all the dance moves we all bust out, even those of us that quite frankly just can’t dance(*cough* *cough* me)
Thank you for all the ways you challenge me and all the wonderful things you bring to our team. For your honestly and the things you’ve taught me. Thank you for being relentless in prayer, for seeking the lord constantly and for always pushing the rest of us to do so as well!
Love you so much!
Alyssa,
We’re basically soul sisters as you wrote in your valentine to me back in Nepal. Seriously though, we are so alike but also very different and I love it! Alyssa, you have so much compassion and such a desire to know the people around you. At first that intimidated me but now it inspires me! I’m so thankful to have been able to spend the past few months with you. You have taught me a lot about myself, about where I find my value and worth and about who the Lord sees me as. Thank you for challenging and encouraging our team to be women of their word, of integrity, to do what we say we’ll do, to work hard, to be selfless and how to love others and be FULLY invested in other people. You are a bright light on our team and our squad! You are so full of the joy of the Lord and you love people so well! I am so excited to continue to get to know you better and to see all the ways the Lord uses you and grows you throughout the remainder of this year. Thank you for setting an example to our entire team in discipline of getting up early every day to make sure you spend time with the Lord. It has challenged me so much this month and shown me more about who you are!
Thanks for being such a solid rock on our team and for being fully invested in us. Love you girl!!
Love,
Keeks
Paige,
From the moment we became friends on Facebook last year I knew that I wanted to know you. And not just know who you are but know you well! I am so thankful that over the past few months I’ve been given that opportunity. Paige, you are radiant! You are so joyful and it is evident everyday that your joy comes completely and solely from Jesus. You love people so well! From writing us notes to clipping and painting our toes.
You inspire me everyday to be more like Jesus and to love people in new ways. You encourage and challenge our team to be fully present, to be ourselves and to push ourselves to live up to the potential with have in Christ. You are a go getter, you are a bundle of energy, you tease like the older sister you are, your laugh is contagious and you can light up a room in an instant with your joy, sass and overall love for others.
You have taught me so much about how to invest in other people, not only that but also how to be FULLY invested in those people. You have taught me how to love people exactly where and how they are and to love them well! You have taught me patience, and understanding, to continue to challenge myself to see things in a different light. How not to be afraid to speak up about something I’m passionate about and how to really love myself!
Thank you for your daily encouragements and jokes. I am so thankful for you and our friendship and I cannot wait to see you grow more throughout this year and continue to know you better. I love you Paige!
Love,
Keeks
Dearest Kaiti,
When I think back to one of my first memories of you I think back to the last night of training camp when janibel swore she was almost done packing but yet her tent looked like a bomb went off in it and you and I were laughing uncontrollably. Since then I have shared so many of these moments with you. Like when we went on that ride in India and you laughed the whole time! Kaiti it is such a joy to not only be on a team with you but to also be your friend! I am so glad that we have become friends and that the Lord put us both on this team.
Kaiti, you are bold in sharing your faith with other people and bold in pursuing change in yourself and the people around you. You are not afraid to call others out on things but you do it with love and grace.
You have taught me so many things like….
How to serve people to the best of my ability, how to be more bold in every aspect, you’ve taught me more about respect and grace with others. You’ve taught me how to just do things without making it known to everyone else that you’re doing it, how to appreciate many aspects of who I am and who other people are and so much more!
You inspire me with how much you not only pursue our team and the people around us but how you pursue Jesus everyday.
Thank you for the laughter you bring to our team and for being such a great friend and an amazing teammate. Love you!
Love,
Kiki
These letters are absolutely and totally truthfully how I feel about each and every one of my teammates and even this cannot fully capture what amazing women they are. These four months on the field with them have been filled with laughter, tears, confusion, disagreements, love, hugs, deep conversations and heartfelt words. We’ve shared things with one another that even some of the people closest to us back home don’t know. I wish I could fully capture these girls, who they are, and how they love each other and Jesus but for now I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it and go off of these letters.
Team Hesed, if this is our last month together I want you to know how much I love each and every one of you and what an encouragement you’ve been to me! You inspire me to know Jesus more, to love better, live a fuller life and so much more! I’m still praying we stay together as a team for a little longer. Fingers crossed! I love you all!
