Not to often do people post about the “behind the scenes” of world race. You hear about the awesome things God is doing in a team, the crazy adventure days, and the challenges that come with living in a 3rd worldcountry; but what most people don’t know is that from day one, I hated my team, actually we all did.
Backstory: During training camp we did multiple team building activities to decide who, out of the 37 people on the squad, was going to be on your first team. Somewhere around day 5, I was under the impression that when the leaders would ask me who I wanted on my team, that those people would actually be on my team and everything would be all hunky dory. LIES. Wednesday, June 15th was decision day, which means we would find out our official team that we would be with for at least 3 months. This day also happened to be my birthday and I was pretty emotionally worn out after being with 300 strangers 24/7 for the past week. Anywayssssss Wednesday we had our final team activity and I realized that I had never been on a “practice team” with any of the people I had suggested, so panic mode started kicking in. When they began calling names to go with your team leader I freaked, actually I cried. Out of the 5 other people in my group, I had only ever talked to one of them before. One of them (team leader) seemed like a pre-K teacher who was gonna baby us to the max, 1 was so shy I had never spoken a word to her before, and 1 was so crazy I thought I might go insane living with her. It felt like all other teams were destined to be together, and we were just the “leftovers” of the squad. Our personalities could not have been any more different. My only friend, Nicole, panicked as well, and we both sprinted out of that room as soon as they would let us leave. She started talking about dropping out of the WR all together, so I frantically attempted to beg her not to leave me with these people through the tears. WORST BIRTHDAY EVER!
Over the course of the next month nothing improved. By the time we got to launch, we still were barely speaking to each other and I had come to accept the reality that I was going to have to put up with this all-girl, leftover, team for the next 3 months of my life. We tried to put on smiles and pretend to be okay by this point.
I’m not really sure what happened between now and then, but for anyone who was praying for us, your prayers worked!!
Present day: My team may be the best team in the history of WR teams (squad leaders who are reading this are probably plotting to separate all of us at the moment) but oh well. Mallory who is the team leader is actually nothing like a pre-K teacher (Shocker)!! She is so caring and leads our team with wisdom and patience, even when we test her limits. Cindy has been coming out of her comfort zone like crazy, she is also super passionate about worship which has been one of my favorite things that we do daily here at YWAM and as a team. Mikkayla’s passion for people and serving is stronger than any one Ihave ever seen (she actually bought the whole team roses yesterday). Her spunk and love for dance parties always keeps us entertained. Nickel’s heart for children is so evident in every thing that she does here. It pretty much only beats for food, Zara, and Jesus; but I love her to death. Basically I couldn’t imagine a better team dynamic. Yes we have crazy different personalities, but God has used that aspect to bring us together and compliment the team as a whole. Watching these girls become less and less like strangers, and more and more like sisters each day, has been an incredible journey. The level of intimacy we have created is not an accident, we have to CHOOSE it daily. Being with the same 4 people 24/7, walls come down and everyones true self comes out. I love the raw team. The team that cries together, laughs together, and fightsfor each other. I don’t even like to think that were gonna have to leave each other someday, but then again we still have at least 2 more months before we have to cross that bridge.
Moral of the story, through my ignorance I couldn’t seen any thing (I mean N-O-T-H-I-N-G) good that could come out of this team, but God had a plan, and now United Pursuit has completely captured my heart <3
PS today is my one month anniversary of being on the race, and I can honestly say its probably been the best monthof my life. One down, 8 to go 🙂
PSS I really really like my team :))))
