Here is a bit of an update blog about what I’ve been up to lately.
When my squad left Jordan we arrived in Istanbul, Turkey. We had planned to stay in a hotel in Istanbul for our squad’s third out of five debriefs that we have on the race. And we did stay there, just a lot longer than intended, which I’ll get into a bit later.
The idea of debrief is to spend time together with the whole squad to be filled up through teachings, worship, and prayer. To get some time to rest before going out to wherever each team is going afterwards.
The first day was a lot of reconciliation in the squad because there has been a lot of tension and mistrust between the squad and leadership. I don’t want to go into the details but it was a beautiful day of healing and love that God brought about.
Pretty much every day after that was full of prayer over each other. Prayer for things like peace, healing, and lots of other things. There was also lots of time spent in worship, just praising God for who He is. Each team had their first team debrief with their new teams about things that worked well the first two weeks and things that didn’t work well. Also, about how we could work better moving forward and love each other better. People could have one-on-one meetings with leadership about anything, really. We had a day where we all just went to the mall together and played a game of bowling.
While debriefs are meant to fill you up and give you rest for me they tend to be hard. Both this debrief and the one we had in Kosovo were filled with intense spiritual warfare. Things like anxiety, stress, depression, and dreams all come out of nowhere all at once. Even though I wasn’t having an issue with it before debrief or after debrief. But it’s not all bad. What the enemy intends to use for evil the Lord uses for good. All of this happening during debrief I had to spend more time in prayer in the morning and in the Word to fight against it. This extra time also made it easier to be praying for others on my squad for the rest of the day. Also getting prayer from my entire squad to help fight against spiritual warfare. Because of all that I didn’t really get rest during debrief.
I got my rest starting the last day of debrief when one of my squadmates tested positive for covid. I didn’t have covid so I just stayed in my apartment and played games, watched movies, and things like that with my squadmates. So the entire squad all had to quarantine for five days according to the CDC guidelines. But a combination of Turkey having seven-day quarantine guidelines and Istanbul having the worst snowstorm they’ve had in a decade. In a city that averages 2 inches of snow per year, we got over a foot of snow in a day. So regardless of the quarantine, we were stuck in the city for two extra days because roads were closed. In that extra week of being stuck in my apartment in Istanbul, I was able to rest and be refilled.
It has been an interesting time here in Turkey so far. It has been both difficult, fun, and growing.
Love hearing about all that is going on, Reynaldo. Did you get to go on a balloon? Was the balloon even held with the snow? It is interesting how you reflect on any conflict or turmoil in the group as also being used by God for His aims. Possibly to grow and work together. Here you are all close to the Holy Land, traveling in spaces where people in the early Church traversed, and they must’ve had relational issues as well. No human organizational setup is perfect, but it can be made perfect with God’s help to achieve His ends! Keep it up, you inspire us daily, and I will continue to pray that your suffering from anxiety, stress, or any other issues are mitigated through the Holy Spirit! We love you and we miss you! – Aunt Cathy
Great overview of debrief and what you have been up to Reynaldo. I love how you say that your time in Turkey has been both difficult, fun, and a time of growing. Sounds like you just described your 11 months on W0rld Rac@e!