[Written by Carolyn Miller, edited by Wendy]
This picture depicts our team “Agua Viva”, which means “living water”. While at training camp one of our Squad trainers, Destiny, came to our team and prophesied over us that we were like a gentle rushing river. Although we can’t remember much else from that conversation we were left with an impression of that visual. Thus later when we had to come up with a team name we started throwing around ideas pertaining to what Destiny had said. We found the meaning of what we wanted our name to emphasize: to be able to share with and bring to people around the world, the life Christ gave us from whom our own fountain of life stems from; but we did not yet have a name.
A few days later we had a training camp exercise where we were dropped off in a small town and were told to ask the Lord to guide us into leading us to pray for people in that community, also known as, ATL or Ask The Lord. We spent some time in prayer and then split into two groups within our team. While my [Carolyn] half was talking with two amazing girls we met at an ice cream shop, the other half of our team ran across a church sign boldly exclaiming “Agua Viva”, literally translated “Water Live” or “living water”. When we gathered again, we excitedly shared the name and how fitting it was with what we wanted it to mean. And it was in the language of the first countries we would visit on the race.
We all agreed that this was what we were looking for on the race: the full life God offers! John 7:37-38 says, “Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” We decided from then on that for each new place we visited we would try to translate our name into the language of the country we were in.
Later at launch, after we’d already submitted our team name, we discussed our goals as a team to live inwardly, upwardly, and outwardly. This further solidified our team name choice, that we desire to take Christ’s invitation to come to Him and from that life rhythm have life flow up from within us to others.
The six of us desire that our team name be a daily reminder to us to be rooted in Christ and from there be gentle yet bold as we interact with each other and others.
