Fellowship is a tranforming thing… especially when it is forced fellowship. I’m amazed at the relationships that have been built in the last two weeks. The first day here at training camp I knew nobody really. I had talked on the phone with a few of my team mates, but if you have ever talked with me on the phone you would know that having a phone converation with me is about as socially awkward as Mike Tyson at a spelling bee. I simply don’t function well on the phone. Needless to say I knew no one coming here. The last two weeks have been an extremely intense time of developing relationships. Though developing relationships isn’t really new to me, this is the first time I haven’t had any of my old friends to turn to at any given time. So the relationship have been super charged, put into a vacuum where there are no barriers to connecting with people in at a depth that would normally take months of time to develop. It has truely been amazing for me. My team in particular moved from strangers, to awkward surface level relationships, to a focused tight knit group that would give anything for eachother with in the course of a week. And I don’t question the intentions of my team. I don’t wonder what benefit they get by befriending me… because they honestly get none. We just love eachother because God put us on a team with eachother, and all our differences seem to fade out.
We leave for Thailand tommorow. There will be plently of challenges for us ahead for us, but there will be so much more growth through them. I’m convinced that this is the kind of community that God yearns for us to experience. Its a community that is selfless, materialistically simple, and organic. Its made of completely different people who deal with things in completely different ways… but we love without restraint. We will live in tents outside in rural Thailand for the next month. There will be very little personal space, and no so American ammenities. But for whatever reason, I can’t wait to live through it with everyone here… Did I mention its only been two weeks.
