“Gainesville again? I thought you already did that?”

A question I got asked quite a few times leading up to my flight back to Gainesville, Georgia. A little over a month ago, my feet landed on the Adventures in Mission's campus that began my entire journey on the World Race gap year last September. It’s a remarkable feeling to be back in a familiar place with a radically new perspective; a feeling that embodies the grace and tenderness and faithfulness of Jesus over my life. 

However, this time around I am no longer a world racer beginning my gap year journey, but instead I get the honor of walking in the role of an alumni team leader. This means living alongside the men and women starting this year’s gap year. I am a part of a “squad” (basically a group of people going to serve in the same places) of about 40 people, but I specifically lead and disciple six women, encouraging them daily to build every area of their lives on the solid foundation of the Lord. 

Here’s what the next two months look like for me:

• There is one more week left of discipleship training in Gainesville, Georgia! The past 4 weeks of training have looked like sleeping in tents, learning how to love the person across the table from us, cultivating spaces where the Lord has met us with healing in areas of our lives we maybe didn't even know we needed it, and receiving teachings on subjects all the way from the culture to mental health! 
• October 16th we are driving 12 hours to North Shore, Louisiana to partner with Samaritan’s Purse for hurricane disaster relief ministry. It will be our first time engaging in ministry as a squad and we get to do it just a few states away! 
• At the beginning of November, we will be going to Guatemala to start international mission work. I get to be there for about a month serving with the squad before the other alumni team leaders and I fly back to the states. Before we say some really hard goodbyes, we get to raise up new team leaders from each of the teams we have been leading to take over our roles. When we leave, the squad will continue living on mission for another 5-6 months, finishing up their work in Guatemala and then traveling to Cambodia and Eswatini.  

So to answer the question that started this whole blog, yes, I have lived in Gainesville before. Yes, this is my second time packing up my life into a 66L bag and living in a tent for months at a time. Yes, I have walked through a very similar type of discipleship training a year ago for my gap year. Yes, I did hurricane disaster relief last year in Louisiana. Yes, I just got off of the central American mission field a few months ago.

All of these places and things are eerily familiar to me, so why the heck would I do it again? I could be starting college or growing myself by doing something completely new and crazy and more "beneficial" to me. I mean, is it really necessary for me to put off "real life" again for some more mission work? Haven't I done my fair share? 

I could sit here and try and defend my choice to be here by answering each question individually, but in all reality none of the answers matter. Such question's simply beg my perspective to be as meager and limiting as me. And by only focusing on what I can get out this "yes" in my life, I actually miss the entire point. None of this is about me at all; this life is simply mine to give, and Jesus’ to take. It should be God’s glory I am concerned about, not my own. And His hands are to be trusted, as they've never failed me yet. 

If God asked me to do something over and over and over again, then I get to trust that with each season He renews my purpose. Not a purpose pointing back to myself, but one that is widening my capacity to carry His glory in my life. I might be walking an eerily similar path to exactly a year ago, but I get to lean into the new stirring that is happening amongst the familiar.

Thank you for sacrificing time to read the words on my heart. I'm excited to continue inviting all of you into the beauty of what God is doing here on this squad and in my life. He has continued to be faithful in my obedience. 

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." 1 Peter 2:9.