You may be wondering what it must be like to live with a
team of people 24 hours a day/ seven days a week. Oh wait, that’s right, you already know… it’s
called family. And if you’re wondering what a World Race team feels like,
that’s just it. You don’t get to pick your family…God does that for you (sometimes
you might wonder what He was thinking?) lol. Well, it’s the same with our World
Race Teams…in fact we didn’t get to pick those either, but God has a purpose
for each one. This month Team ‘Rapha’ (what’s left of it) joined up with Team
‘Considered Lost’… so I guess that makes us Considered
Rapha. (Rapha means ‘healer’ in Hebrew, by the way.) This team of the perfect ten is made up of Roberto, Vinny, Katherine, April, Faith, KK, Natalie, David, Kacie, and yours truly.
We have spent the entire month together and made so many good memories already. And like any great family, much of our quality time revolves around one thing—food!
Buying the Food
Cooking the Food
Eating the Food!
We’ve been making our own meals this month, which has been
incredible. We draw days of the week from a hat & are assigned partners to cook
dinner for the team that night. It has been a blast working together, planning
meals, and sharing around the dinner table. Dinnertime usually consists of me
asking random trivia questions. One night it might be movie trivia, one night
Bible trivia or music trivia. Last night we did Christmas trivia. Okay, maybe we
are geeks, but it is fun! Everyone has done a really great job coming up with
creative meals on a budget. On Kacie and Vinny’s night they made something
called ‘Sicialian Supper’ which is an italian family recipe of Vinny’s. They
made homemade bread and together we shared communion. This
whole experience reminds me of what the early church referred to as ‘the agape’
or love feast. (1 Cor. 11:20-34, Acts 20:11, Matt. 26:26) Before they read from
God’s Word Kacie talked about the body of Christ and told us which part of the
body we would be. [She told me I would be the lips because I like to make
everyone laugh and a smile is the first thing you notice on a person’s face].
Praying Together
We have a time of worship and prayer for about an hour every
morning together. Thankfully there is a piano where we are staying, which is such a blessing! David plays the guitar and Vinny plays the drums so we’ve been able to jam together. Each night we have team meetings, called ‘feedback’ which we
use to encourage each other spiritually or discuss the day and sometimes talk
logistics. Feedback looks different pretty much every night. Sometimes we pick
names and come up with a scripture or encouraging word for that person. Tonight I did a scavenger hunt with candy and we watched Brian Regan as we ate popcorn. The other night we
decided to play a card game of spoons, which started out innocent enough but people started grabbing spoons and running away with them. As
you can see in the video below turned into a full contact sport!
Playing Together
Working Together
Working construction this month
has been a challenge. Not because of the hard labor but because sometimes the
lack of ‘traditional ministry’ makes you wonder if you are making a difference.
But I was encouraged by something we read today in worship. April shared from
the Book of Common Prayer (thanks to Justin Gibson) about a priest named Oscar
Romero who worked for social justice in the nation of El Salvador and was later
martyred for his faith. He made the following statement:
“It
helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The
kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We
accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing
we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always
lies beyond us.
This is
what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water
seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We
cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This
enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may
be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an
opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. Amen
In fact it just so happens our team spent all day planting trees and bushes today. Some of us dug, some of us planted, some of us filled in the dirt, and some spread fertilizer. We will probably never see the results of all the seeds we planted this month as a group, but we know that indeed they do indeed hold future promise! We can already see the fruit of blessing from living together in community.
