“Families are like fudge-mostly sweet, with a few nuts” -I found this quote and since my blog is about my new family (team) on the race, I just couldn’t resist titling it with this! And it’s very fitting- we are all really sweet, but a little nutty at times…or A LOT 🙂 I’ve found myself saying this a lot lately, “I feel like I get a little bit crazier everyday”…but I believe this is in the BEST way possible, more silly or crazier to me means FREEDOM in Christ and when you’re experiencing freedom from things such as: lies that you once believed to be so true, and from things that got you down in the past. It’s like a huge weight is lifted off your shoulders. That’s what God is doing in my life these days and I’m getting crazier and more joyful everyday because of it. Praise Him for bringing out the silly in me! May He do the same in you too!
So I am way behind on blogging and updates and what God is up to…we have been in Bucharest, Romania for the month of October.
At the beginning of this month, our whole squad got together for a time of fellowship and a little something we were all a bit nervous about: dun dun dun…Team Changes!! 🙂
With most squads you have team changes after month three because our squad leaders leave after month four…which is coming up this weekend. The squad leaders raise up new squad leaders from within our squad, which then affects the teams. So after the first week of October the P-squad has had new teams and new squad leaders.
Our new squad leaders are Joshua Maisner and Lia Frederick! Both are amazing leaders and examples of Christ to all of us. I am so excited to see how God uses them and grows them in this new season of leadership. They have the tools that it takes to do this great task and they are so lively and full of joy. I’m always laughing when I’m with both of them, because they are that cool 🙂
A shout out to our three squad leaders that will always be a part of the P-squad, just from back home now…Janina, Kyla and Kim: You are AMAZING leaders to our squad; coming alongside each one of us, supporting us, crying with us, teaching us, caring about us, learning from us, being strong when we weren’t, lifting us up in prayer, encouraging us, getting to know our hearts, and being selfless servants following what God was leading you to do during this season of your lives. Thank you for your faithfulness in serving the Lord and for the love you have poured out, I hope you know how much we honor you and LOVE you ladies for everything you do and the gifts you have imparted to us.
Well, it has definitely been a season of change this past month. Team City Lights is no more…we had a good and challenging three months together. Before our teams changed, our team leader Jake did a foot washing ceremony for all of us and we talked about the ways that God worked in us and through us for the past three months. I saw God work through all of us in people’s lives, we all built different and meaningful relationships with beautiful people in each country and we loved them with His love. As a team we agreed that grew more individually than together. I think that’s how it was supposed to go for that season of our lives on the race. We needed to let God teach us some important lessons as individuals and then come alongside each other to work through those things. I believe this is what we did, I learned new things from each of my teammates on City Lights and love each one of them so much.
On the race you
- learn together
- sit together
- cry together
- pray together
- work through junk from the past together
- listen to each others stories and learn from each other
- laugh a lot
- and just do life together.
- We became a family– families have ups and downs…but we work through those and come out learning more than we could imagine.
RIP City Lights: Stacey, Robby, Jake, Laura, Kendra, and Rachel 🙂 Love ya’ll and our time together.
Onto Team Changes:
They gave us our team changes in envelopes and gave us an hour to pray about them in silence and process these new changes.
I was kind of anxious to open my envelope and waited awhile because I really needed to pray and get my heart right. These are the names I found when I opened my envelope:
Jake- leader
Sami Moor
Daniel Durick
Kendra Floyd
Rachel McGuire
and Me : ) 
We are Team Fearless: We decided on this name for our new team because we really felt God calling us to be fearless in this new season of changes; the countries we are going into next, the challenges we will face, the risks God asks us to take, fearless in our relationships, and fearless in loving people, and just to have us fully relying on Him for our needs.
There are 3 people from my previous team: Kendra, Rachel, and Jake. And Sami and Daniel are from Team Green Light..the team we worked with last month in Ireland.
I was literally shocked to see a lot of names from my old team and these new friends from the month before, on my piece of paper. I trust and respect all of these people on my team so much. It has truly been a bonding month for us here in Romania.
Ministry this month: CASA SHALOM
We have partnered with a missionary who runs a place called Casa Shalom. It used to be an orphanage with hundreds of children living on the property we are staying at, but the government put too many regulations on it to keep it running. Now our contact Becky, works extremely hard to feed and clothe many gypsy villages around her and farther away and. We were able to help Becky organize her garage full of clothes that are donated to her, to give away and to sell to financially support Casa Shalom and all it does for the community. We also were able to visit churches and sing songs, share testimonies and Words from scripture, encourage believers, pass out clothes, meals and drinks, play with the kids and give them much needed attention and love, and get some much needed rest before we head to Africa on the 30th.
Here a few videos from our month here at Casa Shalom, ENJOY and Be Blessed!
