A Team Member Says Goodbye

Team Member Interns travel around the country as part of a team of four—two guys and two girls. Teams speak at schools, churches, and conferences about worldviews, pop-culture, discipleship, technology, and so much more. 

If you're interested or know someone who would be interested in being a traveling Team Member Intern for the 2014-2015 school year, please go to apply.axis.org for more details. Deadline to apply is May 15, 2014! We currently have spots available for 2 guys and 5 girls.

—————————————————————

I had the amazing opportunity of working for Axis for a year and a half. Looking back, I am amazed at how God was able to use me. He broke me and stretched me in so many incredible ways. 

Starting out, I had no idea what I was in for, and even after all this time at Axis, when I try to describe what I got to do, I can never do it justice. After my first trip, I had many people asking me how it was, what I thought, and if I liked it so far. Though it was a great first trip, I recall summing it up in three words: “It. Was. Hard.”

The biggest thing I have learned through my time at Axis is that God is able to use every situation. He is able to use me when I feel insecure and not good enough. There were times on the road when I felt so empty and drained, but God showed up, no matter where I was and no matter what I had done. I fail so often, but He has continued to show His grace and power every single day.

When I started, I was scared to simply start a conversation with high schoolers (they are intimidating!). But God started out strong with challenging me. He showed me a lot of doubts and insecurities I had not realized I was struggling with. Speaking to large groups has a way of doing that to you. And every time I presented, I felt like God was teaching me more through the presentation. When you start to talk about the same stuff over and over and ask students to ask themselves deep questions about their lives, it’s hard not to ask yourself the same questions. 

I have learned a lot about what the family of Christ looks like through my Internship with Axis. Yes, I have my biological family and my close friends, but traveling around the country has shown me how big my family really is. With every school, church, and host home we went to, my family got bigger and bigger. Now I have family all over the country—family that laughed, talked, and prayed with us and impacted us in more ways than they know. 

Every team I have been a part of has taught me something different and valuable. I learned about leadership and respect from my team directors. I learned about love and community from my fellow team members. I learned from the people that work at Axis what a servant heart looks like and was humbled by it many times. 

Don’t get me wrong—there are definitely differences and frustrations while traveling simply because of the nature of relationships, but what I learned from being in these relationships with others is love. It sounds so simple. Christ talks about loving others so much throughout the gospels, and He considers it the greatest commandment. Love. That is how we should be different—by how we love. 

Love is a decision, not just a feeling. In Scripture, Jesus calls us to love not just our neighbors but also our enemies. It is easy to love people who love you back, but I have learned that it is difficult to love when someone is hard to love or when he/she doesn’t love you back. When there are students who do not care or when I am frustrated with a team member, I still need to love, especially when it’s difficult.

Overall, Axis was more than just a job for me. When I look back on my time with Axis, I see faces:

Faces of the team members who were strangers initially but who turned into family and taught me so many things. 

Faces of host families who were so gracious to open their homes to us. 

Faces of administrators and teachers who were so encouraging and who work so hard to love their students amidst spiritual warfare. 

Faces of parents who want, so badly, to relate to and understand their kids because they love them.

And faces of students who have touched my life. Students who have had the courage to tell me their life stories that break my heart. Students I can pray for and have had conversations with and can see God’s amazing work in their lives. 

That is what Axis is about. And it is the hardest, most rewarding part of the Internship. 

—Kaitlin

You Can Wait On The World To Change Or You Can Change The World

John Mayer’s song, “Waiting on the World to Change” managed to find its way into my head this morning. Sure, it’s a little outdated -- maybe even vintage by today’s standards -- but none the less, it’s stuck in my head.

When the song released in 2006, it caused some controversy. Some claimed it was a song about the apathy of our generation, while others argued that it was an anthem for the generation that would one day be in power.

In The Advocate, Mayer described the song this way, "It’s saying, ‘Well, I’ll just watch American Idol because I know that if I were engaged in changing anything for the better, or the better as I see it, it would go unnoticed or be completely ineffective.' A lot of people have that feeling."

He’s basically saying that it’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that we’re afraid and perhaps, by the time we are adults, we will be ready to be part of the solution. We will be bold enough to make a difference and finally have the tools to do great things.

But where does that leave us right now? Can we do anything worthwhile today?

Rachel, a 12 year-old girl from Florida thinks so. So much so, that she has worked for the past 3 years, raising over $250,000.00 and building 27 permanent homes for a community in Haiti. Check out the video by clicking here.

Rachel said, “Life is life. You can’t just say I’m going to make Haiti the best place in the world and it happens at the snap of a finger, you have to work at it. You have to make it happen.”

Rachel’s success was evident way before she received press coverage, newspaper articles and blogs written about her. Rachel is bold and not waiting for her “generation to rule the population.” She’s starting now. Her next project? Build a new school that was destroyed in the earthquake back in 2010, and guess what? She’s halfway there!