Lessons learned hanging on a Rusty Fence
9,000 feet of fence, a rusty chain link fence that serves as a perimeter along the side of Camp Mahanahaim were the ocean meets the rocky beach. I don't think any of us knew that the project we took on of painting a fence would be so hard and yet exactly what I needed and what our team needed. Every day we went out with our paint brushes in hand, buckets, plastic, and dressed in numerous contraptions trying to keep our skin from the oil based paint that left us cleaning ourselves with paint thinner for an hour after we were done for the day. We started painting at 8 each morning, took an hour for lunch, and then started clean up around 3:30pm. The sun was brutal and the side where the ocean was had a ledge that was about 3 inches wide which forced us to hold our selves up on the fence while balancing a paintbrush and bucket. Even though this task was tedious and tiring and many days we dragged as we started out toward the fence, I would not change what we did in Haiti.
The lessons we learned far outweigh any sun burned skin, callused hands, painted bodies, tired muscles, and tired hearts.
As we worked and worked on the fence realizing more and more it would take us all month we searched for a deeper meaning. We learned that this fence was more than just any fence. It was a fence that separates the ocean from the camp, and if you know anything about haiti you know that the ocean stirs and at any moment a tsunami or any big storm could come crashing and destroy Haiti. Having the camp right on the Carribean Ocean is very risky. We decided to look at this fence as painting a hedge of protection around the camp. With each stroke of the paint brush I prayed that God would protect this camp. With each coat of paint I prayed that the Holy spirit was being sealed in and that the enemy would be closed out to this Camp, that it would be untouchable.
This fence was also for our team. We learned a great deal about having grace on eachother. We also learned about what it meant to have tem unity. While we painted the fence we found many of us spread out, headphones in, working alone trying to get the fence done. As I write this, we have just finished the fence yesterday and we ended together. None of us had ipods in and even if our job, or our part of the fence was done we went back to help the people who had not yet finished. We ended all crammed together in the last couple sections of the fence and when we were done, we went in together. This is a lesson that we need to remember always, whether we are having teamtime, serving together, hearing some hard feedback or sharing our hearts, we do not just do our part and check out, we stand crammed beside eachother, pushing eachothr up to greatness and not checking out untill we all end together, in everything. We fight for eachother.
Lessons learned hanging on a Rusty Fence
9,000 feet of fence, a rusty chain link fence that serves as a perimeter along the side of Camp Mahanahaim were the ocean meets the rocky beach. I don't think any of us knew that the project we took on of painting a fence would be so hard and yet exactly what I needed and what our team needed. Every day we went out with our paint brushes in hand, buckets, plastic, and dressed in numerous contraptions trying to keep our skin from the oil based paint that left us cleaning ourselves with paint thinner for an hour after we were done for the day. We started painting at 8 each morning, took an hour for lunch, and then started clean up around 3:30pm. The sun was brutal and the side where the ocean was had a ledge that was about 3 inches wide which forced us to hold our selves up on the fence while balancing a paintbrush and bucket. Even though this task was tedious and tiring and many days we dragged as we started out toward the fence, I would not change what we did in Haiti.
The lessons we learned far outweigh any sun burned skin, callused hands, painted bodies, tired muscles, and tired hearts.
As we worked and worked on the fence realizing more and more it would take us all month we searched for a deeper meaning. We learned that this fence was more than just any fence. It was a fence that separates the ocean from the camp, and if you know anything about haiti you know that the ocean stirs and at any moment a tsunami or any big storm could come crashing and destroy Haiti. Having the camp right on the Carribean Ocean is very risky. We decided to look at this fence as painting a hedge of protection around the camp. With each stroke of the paint brush I prayed that God would protect this camp. With each coat of paint I prayed that the Holy spirit was being sealed in and that the enemy would be closed out to this Camp, that it would be untouchable.
This fence was also for our team. We learned a great deal about having grace on eachother. We also learned about what it meant to have tem unity. While we painted the fence we found many of us spread out, headphones in, working alone trying to get the fence done. As I write this, we have just finished the fence yesterday and we ended together. None of us had ipods in and even if our job, or our part of the fence was done we went back to help the people who had not yet finished. We ended all crammed together in the last couple sections of the fence and when we were done, we went in together. This is a lesson that we need to remember always, whether we are having teamtime, serving together, hearing some hard feedback or sharing our hearts, we do not just do our part and check out, we stand crammed beside eachother, pushing eachothr up to greatness and not checking out untill we all end together, in everything. We fight for eachother.
Lessons learned hanging on a Rusty Fence
9,000 feet of fence, a rusty chain link fence that serves as a perimeter along the side of Camp Mahanahaim were the ocean meets the rocky beach. I don't think any of us knew that the project we took on of painting a fence would be so hard and yet exactly what I needed and what our team needed. Every day we went out with our paint brushes in hand, buckets, plastic, and dressed in numerous contraptions trying to keep our skin from the oil based paint that left us cleaning ourselves with paint thinner for an hour after we were done for the day. We started painting at 8 each morning, took an hour for lunch, and then started clean up around 3:30pm. The sun was brutal and the side where the ocean was had a ledge that was about 3 inches wide which forced us to hold our selves up on the fence while balancing a paintbrush and bucket. Even though this task was tedious and tiring and many days we dragged as we started out toward the fence, I would not change what we did in Haiti.
The lessons we learned far outweigh any sun burned skin, callused hands, painted bodies, tired muscles, and tired hearts.
As we worked and worked on the fence realizing more and more it would take us all month we searched for a deeper meaning. We learned that this fence was more than just any fence. It was a fence that separates the ocean from the camp, and if you know anything about haiti you know that the ocean stirs and at any moment a tsunami or any big storm could come crashing and destroy Haiti. Having the camp right on the Carribean Ocean is very risky. We decided to look at this fence as painting a hedge of protection around the camp. With each stroke of the paint brush I prayed that God would protect this camp. With each coat of paint I prayed that the Holy spirit was being sealed in and that the enemy would be closed out to this Camp, that it would be untouchable.
This fence was also for our team. We learned a great deal about having grace on eachother. We also learned about what it meant to have tem unity. While we painted the fence we found many of us spread out, headphones in, working alone trying to get the fence done. As I write this, we have just finished the fence yesterday and we ended together. None of us had ipods in and even if our job, or our part of the fence was done we went back to help the people who had not yet finished. We ended all crammed together in the last couple sections of the fence and when we were done, we went in together. This is a lesson that we need to remember always, whether we are having teamtime, serving together, hearing some hard feedback or sharing our hearts, we do not just do our part and check out, we stand crammed beside eachother, pushing eachothr up to greatness and not checking out untill we all end together, in everything. We fight for eachother.
