It's a new month, a completely new team, and a new continent – China. (Meet Hidden Refuge: Lynette – team leader, Anna, Rachel, Alexandra R. and Katie). It is cold, snowy and can't read one character in Chinese but somehow we manage. We're definitely not in Africa anymore. Spiritual warfare feels different here than it does in Africa. Here is a story of how we were we were caught in the middle of disunity, frustration and silence which almost ruined our team.
After meeting with our friend Cloud at her university for ministry, Katie, Rachel, Anna, Zandra (Alexandra) and I went to a restaurant close to our housing site for dinner (Lynette was not there because she felt sick). It took us about a good 30 minutes to try to get our order in. It was like playing charades. We were pointing to the menu, saying the few numbers we know how to say in Chinese, pointing at food that passed us by, all the while laughing as the people in the restaurant stared at us. God bless the woman who was patient with us because
we were very hungry.
Once we sat down, we got our pot stickers (doughy balls filled with meat or vegetables or both which are, by the way, very good). Some of us had gone to this restaurant before and were hoping to have the same filling we had the last time. Unfortunately that didn't happen, but we did get a new one with some peppers that were not too hot at all. Anna doesn't like anything that is hot, no matter how mild it can be. We get these pot stickers and someone bites into the one we hadn't tried before and said that it was good. Rachel and Anna are sitting across from each other. Anna starts asking "What's in it?" Rachel says "Just try it". Anna says "What if I don't like it?" Rachel says "If you don't like it you don't have to eat it but it's good to try new things." This goes back and forth for about 2 minutes. I start getting annoyed but Zandra, who is sitting across from me, starts making faces at me to be silly and I join in. Anna decides she doesn't like the pot stickers with the peppers because it's spicy and says she's mad at Rachel for making her eat that. The conversation then changes.
Somehow weddings were brought up and Anna asks Zandra if she had ever been to a Mexican wedding. Zandra and I make eye contact from across the table. Katie, who is sitting next to me, looks up from eating her soup and says "I saw that". Zandra and I laugh because Zandra is Mexican and when she told us her story, she had mentioned her older brother's wedding. I mentioned that to Anna and we brushed it off as no big deal. Meanwhile, Katie is sitting next to me silent and looking frustrated. Usually Katie is making faces, telling funny stories and usually is lighthearted. Rachel is sitting on the other side of Katie and asks her "Are you ok?" Katie in an abrupt moment looks straight ahead and says "I'm fine". I thought she was going to bite someone's head off.
We finished our soup and started heading to our place. We didn't talk about what happened that night during feedback, but the next night we did. And this is what we found out. Mind games are some of satan's favorite things to do.
It started off with Lynette asking us if our team was a safe place to share and if it is ok to not share everything with one another. They were just two questions we were to ponder, but since us women tend to naturally be verbal processors, we started to answer these two questions out loud. Katie brought up the night at the restaurant. She expressed that she wanted to know that this team can be trusted and didn't wan't people to secretely have reservations with one another – which can cause a divide in the team. She brought up when Zandra and I looked at each other and had said "I saw that". Katie thought that we were making faces because she thought we were annoyed with Anna. Rachel thought that we made faces because she was trying to be too controlling over what Anna ate. All of us thought that Katie was pushing us out of what was really going on in her life and that we weren't allowed to ask her anymore questions. Anna felt Katie was mad at her because on the way home, Katie did not talk with Anna and seemed to want to be left alone. I was tired and just wanted to go home and I know Zandra felt the same way.
Basically, we were in disunity because we were insecure about what we all perceived about each other. Had we not talked about this during feedback, we might of still been building on insecurities and tearing down the wall of trust we had been building as a new team – and that would have certainly made ministry harder. We might have not been able to continue to break the law of sharing the gospel and giving away a bible to our dear Chinese friend. Check out my next blog for that story.
It's important to be in constant communication with each other as a team and be unified in the Spirit. Each morning we have set time apart for worship and prayer. We've continually choosing in to be honest and transparent – even when it can be hard or awkward to bring up.
