this first month in romania is an all squad month, which means that 33 teenagers, 6 leaders, and myself are living together in one household. yeah somewhat overwhelming. and to no surprise, god has been teaching me some lessons through daily life with my many roommates.
the main one (and my least favorite) being patience; something that the lord made loud and clear when i had a little incident with a sea creature.
first though, let’s discuss the mission house. it can get a little chaotic here. each morning the squad, as a whole, has worship and session at hope church at precisely 9 am. so around 7 am everyday, the house is alive. the bathroom, our own world race water park, typical has a line out the door for showers and bathrooms. any inch of the back patio becomes a gym for sprints, yoga, stretching, and even lifting (bricks, water gallons, people, or whatever’s available). the kitchen starts to pump out the sweet aroma of eggs, bacon, and coffee, shortly followed by the usual burst of smoke from something burning. there are people running up and down the stairs, chatting across rooms, sitting in every chair, bench, and window, singing and playing instruments, grouping up for team time, entering the house with groceries or leaving in a mad frenzy for the church. and that’s just the beginning.
its rare to find a minute of silence or time alone. the house is never empty, the bedrooms and bathrooms are always messy, there are always dirty dishes, and trash laying on the floor. people will eat your food, use your towel, invade your space, borrow your things without notice, leave you toilet-paper-less in the bathroom, and put empty boxes of food back in the cabinet. things you would never expect to find in the bathroom or shower or bedroom, are in the bathroom, shower, and bedroom.
not to mention there’s always someone late to a meeting, had the wrong time of the meeting, or didn’t know there was even a meeting. someone using your designated time to cook or do laundry. someone who missed the announcements and needs them repeated. and someone holding up the group from leaving. always one, usually several.
it wasn’t until we were given a three day adventure trip to greece (generously by our amazing ministry host, raul) that my attitude toward squad month changed. the second day there, a large group of us went to a beach in thessaloniki that had an area to snorkel and cliff dive. prior to leaving and upon arrival, the leaders had stated over and over and over and OVER again not to go near the sea urchins. “avoid the dark spiky circles!”. “pay close attention to your surroundings, and be extra careful.”
and ten minutes in, as i was climbing up out of the water onto the rocks to cliff jump, i slipped and lost my footing. there was blood up and down my legs, and to my surprise some on my toes. i turned my right foot over and behold (!!!) about 30 of those dreaded, dark, foul, awful, spiky spikes were embedded in my toes.
i felt so i n c r e d i b l y dumb. there i sat on the rocks, the former missionary kid who lived in the caribbean with two years of exposure to these sea devils; the only one out of 40 to have stepped on one after repeated instruction to NOT do the very thing i just did.
so as i hobbled one-footed down the path back to the beach with the help and supervision of joel and amie beth (god bless you both), then carried through the sand, and handed my things on a beach chair, it came to me that i was the very person that i hated back at the squad house. the irresponsible person that doesn’t listen to instruction, that did the one and only thing they were told not to do, and the one the whole squad had to wait on.
yeah ok god….. i guess i should work on my patience, you’re right
it took me nearly two hours to whittle out all the little suckers, and each and every minute god humbled my soul. although it was not my favorite way to learn from the lord, sometimes you just need a good slap in the face or several large splinters in the most sensitive part of body to realize you need to change some things.
my patience is now much longer than before, it still needs some work. but god, please hear me out, i’m definitely working on it.
