If you didn't know by now, my team has drastically changed. Two of my team members returned home, Imelda in the middle of the month and Alex before we headed to Ukraine. As a team we joked that we would all just go rouge and wonder what others thought as these events transpired.
I recently read this quote by D.A. Carson
The church is…made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything else of that sort Christians come together…because they have all been saved by Jesus Christ…They are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus' sake.
When I read this I thought of my team. Before we came together we weren't natural enemies, but we were very different people who had very different opinions. Many of us had never had a conversation with each other. In fact, afterwards many of my friends told me that they wondered if we would work at all as a team. The simplest answer I could give them is we are a community that came out of nowhere and worked because we were focused on the most important thing, the Gospel.
And that is what matters. Each day we approached life with Jesus as the focus.
Did we disagree, yes
Did people argue, yes
Were feelings hurt, yes
Did we misunderstand each other, yes
Did people drive us crazy, yes
But,
We worked through our issues
We learned to love our differences
We knew it was ok if we disagreed
We challenged each other
We called each other out
We loved each other
We were obedient to the call of Jesus on each of our lives
And that is why I can say I love each of my team members. We all love each other because of the one who loved us first, Jesus. I am so thankful that He brought seven different people together and made us His church. He made us His hands and feet and took us on a wild ride with each other.
We experienced the victory that only comes from following God with all of our hearts. We experienced the victory of being obedient at all times, even when that means questioning the things going on around you or going home early. I experienced the victory of letting these six people into my life . We are still experiencing the victory as Holy FIRE isn't over, it's just spreading throughout the world, and will continue to as long as we keep out focus on what's most important, Jesus.
So Alex, Isaac, Angela, Liz, Erin, and Imelda, thank you for keeping your focus on Jesus and being obedient to His call. Never stop spreading His love!
