I've realized that I have not been informing nor updating everyone on how this World Race thing works…so here is my attempt.
Squads: Depending on the route and countries that suit your liking, you get to be on route 1, 2, 3 or 4. Once you are in a route, your route gets assigned a letter. For example, I chose to leave in September and chose route 1. We are now known as the I-Squad. Each squad has about 60 people.
Teams: Within our squad, we then get separated into groups of 6-8 people. During the week long training camp, we get placed in our groups in which A.I.M. places us in (they do test runs and we get placed in different groups several of times before picking the final group). Some groups are all female while others are male and female [men are lacking so no all male groups]. I got placed with two brothers in Christ and four sisters. We are team Degel – meaning banner. We felt like the Lord was calling us to be bold, unashamed, warriors for Christ. Banners were used as a symbol for courage and strength to the soldiers at war. This team and I will always be together for the next 11 months. Check out their blogs on the side of my page! They all have their pretty pictures!
Housing at Ministry Sites: Could be great or not so great. I've heard stories of past world racers who had to live in insect filled housing, sleep on hallway floors, tents outside in the bush, hostiles or plainly anywhere within the ministry site where you can find floor space. Sometimes we will have nicer places to stay.
Routes: Routes can change at any point. We already had a route change. We will no longer be going to Moldova but will now be going to Romania. Here is the list of countries by month:
Zimbabwae/Botswana – Sept
Swaziland – Nov
China – Dec
Philippines – Jan
India – Feb
Romania – March
Ukraine – April
Honduras – May
Nicaragua – June
Costa Rica/Panama – July
*The / means that some of our squad will be in one country while the other part of our squad will be in the other country
Departure Date: We will be meeting with our squad September 5th in Chicago and will be departing (I assume) September 6th. A.I.M. has already purchased our tickets and we will not know what time or day we will leave until the 5th when our whole squad meets together in Chicago. All we know is that half our squad will be sent to Zimbabwe while the other half will be sent to Botswana and we will stay with our designated teams. The World Race is one of those things in which you learn as you go, live in the now and because of that, become very flexible and undestanding with everything. Patience is a virtue.
For more information about the WR lingo and how it all works, visit my fellow I-Squader's blog. I assure you, it will help you understand it better. I am sure I will eventually talk about feedback. Check it out!
http://ashliblackwell.theworldrace.org/?filename=you-just-need-to-know-wr-lingo-101
By the way! There is an option for people to adopt any team on any squad for the entire 11 months and pray for us! Take a look at that if you're interested. It is on the left below my picture where it says 'Adopt My Team! Learn More >>'
