- Leah Van Someren
Tour de Philippines
Coming at you from Tacloban City in the Philippines where I and my *new* team is serving for the month of December. Working in partnership with The Lighthouse and Kids International Ministries, we've got to host Christmas parties and bring food to village kids throughout the city.
Now you may be thinking, 'New team? What the heck?" Let me explain. I am running the Race as a part of a squad consisting of 18 other people who range from 21 to 35 and furiously love the Lord. The squad is then broken up to three different teams and there are approximately three expected team changes throughout the 11 months. For these changes, our leadership team prays at least two months before, asking the Lord what He has planned and then, with that wisdom, they formulate new teams based on the Lord's prompting. Team formulation is designed to spur us on and teach us to look more like Jesus. By changing our team, we are forced out of our comfort zones and given opportunities to continue to learn and grow. Month one, I got to serve with five other incredible women on the team, "Always Before Me." We then had an uncharacteristically early team change at the beginning of month two where two women were added to my original team creating the new team, "Radiant Daughters". This is now my third team change and this one affected the whole squad.
For the next stint of the Race I'll be serving alongside Carly Miers (who I've been on this journey with since month one), Reece Holland, Chase Collins and Kirsten Overholser. You can check out their blogs on the left sidebar of my blog homepage.
Our team name is Plants & Pillars based off Psalm 144:12 which says, "May our sons in their youth be like plants full grown, our daughters like corner pillars cut for the structure of a palace." God gave us two words to cast His vision for our team even before we new who are new team was: Strength and vulnerability. What is strong if not pillars? And what is vulnerable if not plants? And the coolest part is...I (a daughter of the King) got the word 'strength' and Reece (a son of the King) got the word 'vulnerability'.
Any who! I hope you enjoy the video and merry Christmas!