Meet My Team

The day had finally arrived. Group assignments and a tentative country schedule for the first 6 months. I know you’re just as curious and excited as I was so let me go ahead and list off the schedule for you. 

Launch date is August 6th. That’s when we and our parents will all meet up at a hotel and spend one last day worshipping together and easing all those parental fears. After lunch on the 7th we say goodbye for a year. and parents head back to the airport while we head back to training camp for missions specific training. On August 12th we will go to the airport and prepare to fly to Guatemala! The rest of the first 6 months looks like this:

1. Guatemala
2. Honduras
3. Costa Rica
4. Nicaragua
5. Columbia
6. Ecuador

Instead of just listing off the names of who was in each group our staff decided to have a little fun with it. They gave us each a slip of paper with a character name and the movie or show they were from. We all looked at them at the exact same time and then had to find the rest of our cast without saying who we were or the name of the movie. My team found each other so fast that I couldn’t tell you even one of the other groups’ movies and here’s why:

I unfolded my slip of paper and read the name with a sigh of relief. I knew who it was and I wouldn’t be stuck standing around like a fool. At the exact moment I had that thought I heard a song that had me grinning as I pushed through everyone else to reach it. It reminded me of a siren song. I heard nothing else and saw nothing else except the person and then people singing. My character’s name: Anna. The song “Let It Go” could be heard loud and clear through the crowd. I looked up to find Jose and Jacob arm in arm singing at the top of their lungs. Without hesitation, I latched on and joined in the song as we began swaying back and forth. It wasn’t much longer before Lindsey and Gwen heard the song and came to find us. We looked around to see who else would join us and noticed the groups had pretty much been formed. A team of five amid a group of teams of six. Let me introduce them to you:

Gwen

We actually met for the first time during a name game that first night we were at camp. She had no idea what my name was and I didn’t know hers. It was wonderfully awkward.

She is 22 years old, with 8 older siblings. She is most definitely a people person and having her on the team is going to help push me to be more outgoing as well. 

Another quick story about Gwen is that one morning I had chosen to pack my stuff in the training center rather than on the muddy ground and Gwen offered to carry my 47lbs pack up the hill and back to camp for me as I finished packing it. 

Pray that she can become less independent and depend more on God over the next year.

 Lindsey

We met while setting up our tents. We set them up pretty close to each other that first night and that’s when I learned she’s a very light sleeper. 

Lindsey is 25 years old and was a model before she quit and went to college for photography and graphic design. She is going to be our resident videographer. Be prepared to see our group in some Youtube videos!

She has a huge heart for people and is probably going to be my mental sounding board in place of my own family as we start this trip. 

 Pray that she is able to stay fully engaged on this journey and not worry about what the future holds.

 Jose

 Jose was is the only one left from my original route that was due to leave in October. We both made some hard decisions to leave a close knit squad to defer to a later route. 

He is 23 years old with 2 younger siblings. He loves to travel and in fact did a whole lot of traveling over the last year visiting a large chunk of our previous squad as he drove around the country. Of course I can’t let him forget that he skipped me during that trip. 😉

Jose is our group comedian and our prayer warrior. He’s the one that’s going to suggest all of the crazy things to do on adventure days and I’ll be the one trying to talk him out of it!

Pray that he has the right heart posture when he prays and that he keeps that good attitude while doing menial tasks for our hosts.

 Jacob

Jacob has some serious patience. He stuck by me on the hike down the mountain, making sure I didn’t fall on my face and helping to point out the smoother path. 

He is 23 years old and an only child. In case you didn’t guess from the picture he plays guitar and is also very competitive in sports including ping pong.

The perfect balance between business and pleasure, Jacob is going to be the one that keeps us all in line.

Pray that he will continue his journey with confidence and freedom.

At no point during the week was I worried about who would be on my team. I would work hard to get along with anyone. I also didn’t really have a preference towards any individuals. The second I saw my whole team together things seemed just right. I’m not saying we won’t ever have any conflicts, in fact I can think of a problem right now that we will have to figure out a solution to very quickly, but this team is going to work together easily. 

Just yesterday we decided on a team name and I’m proud to confuse you by telling you our team name is “Team 2.1.7.”  It stands for 2 Timothy 1:7. A verse that will serve us well on our journey.

*P.S. After this post my training camp blogs are about to get MUCH longer. It’s story time! Feel free to skim through the next few blogs.