Serve Team

It’s been over 2 months since I updated you guys about what I’ve been doing. I was at home in Michigan for 5 weeks. I have to say that those five weeks were a hard time for much the same reason I mentioned in my last blog. I just haven’t really had a community in Michigan but I have been praying for that when I get back. While I was home I started joining my parents at their church, Connection Church. I have built some relationships with a few of the young adults while I was there, but nothing really deep given the amount of time I was at home. When I get back home I plan to really pour into the people there and love them well. And to get connected to that church for however long I’m back in Michigan. (God has made it clear that the U.S. is not where I’m going to be long-term).

As I’ve been saying I already left Michigan. I left to go to my squad reunion which was from August 10-13th in Florida. I really enjoyed it, getting to catch up with some of the people I had traveled the world with. Getting to see how they have been doing in the five weeks since we left the race. Just being with them and getting to hangout at least one more time, for some of them.

Then after that was over I drove north with my squad mentor, Ari, to go back to Adventures in Missions in Gainesville, Georgia. I’ve been here since then volunteering on their serve team to help out with squad leader training and training camp.

Serve team mostly consists of us helping the cooks prepare the meals for all the staff and racers during training camp. Which at its busiest was about 5 of us cooking for about 200 people. Some of the squads have left since then but there is still a decent amount of people to cook for. We also help with the cleaning around the campus. Which is really just cleaning the bathrooms and cleaning the endless amount of dishes. The racers do the rest of the cleaning around campus. Some of them are amazing and have constantly come to help do dishes and bring them inside. Then we also have random other jobs get assigned to us from time to time.

Serve team has kept me very busy these last five weeks but I have really loved it. I’ve enjoyed being back in this community of people that are always so intentional with people. Getting to spend some more time with people that I went on the race with that I didn’t expect to see again so soon. I’m glad that I get to be here and make training camp happen. I know without serve team training camp for the race wouldn’t be possible, because there just isn’t enough staff. So I’m glad that we can be here to serve and take stuff off the staff’s plate. 

God has used this time here to bring a lot of healing and a lot of freedom in my life. While I’ve been here my dog got diagnosed with lung cancer and died. Which was hard because anyone who knows me knows how much I loved that little guy. God has also used this time to help bring some healing about how I think others see me. Allowing Him into that part of me and letting the truth in. 

I’m going to be here in Gainesville until I fly home October 15th. I don’t know how long I’ll be home but I want to make the most of that time.

I’ll just finish this update blog by sharing the verse of the day from the Bible app.

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” Zephaniah 3:17