Road Jes Traveled

I AM OBSESSED WITH THESE HUMANS!!!   But the truth is, it hasn't always been sunshine and rainbows. You used to be able to cut the tension between us with a knife. In fact, I think the rest of our squad would agree that our team was the most disunited team as we launched onto the race. But we persevered, we fought the good fight, we CHOSE to love each other. And man I'm so glad we did.   I met all of them at training camp (TC) in October 2016. In fact, I met our whole squad then. All 54 of them. 54 people is a lot. Naturally, I spent each day at TC intentionally setting aside time to build relationships. And I built some good ones. At the end of TC when they announced our teams, I looked around at the 6 people I was matched with. One of my first reactions was to burst into tears. (Sounds dramatic but we were also sleep deprived, food deprived, cold, uncomfortable, and emotionally picked apart!) I looked at them and wondered WHY? What did AIM see in them that they th...

As I pressed submit for my last blog post I was interrupted by an American voice. It was a man (Mark) and woman asking for the wifi password (I was sitting at a coffee shop). We started talking and long story short - he's a pastor from Montana here with some of his youth group. They offered to let us use their hotel showers!! After about an hour of conversation, we accepted his offer. We walked for about an hour to his hotel. We had the best showers and could not stop talking about how it was a total gift that we crossed paths. Mark wanted us to meet his friends and invited us to dinner. We ended up at a Peruvian restaurant with around 25 people. Person after person came into the restaurant, each having their own story about how they met Pastor Mark and many of them not knowing each other. So we sat there, all coming from different paths, speaking different languages, but all connected by this crazy, God-loving man, Mark! I was seated across the table from a man who works for the ...