“Let brotherly sisterly love continue.”
Hebrews 13:1
Close your eyes and imagine this. A white apartment block, two brown double doors invite you into a staircase with four sets of ten stairs each. You climb the first three sets of stairs and stand in front of a brown door; shoes litter the tile floor on either side of it. You look up and the realize the fourth set of stairs leads nowhere, whatever may have been there before is cemented over. You grasp the golden handle of the door and push in, almost immediately a chorus of smells and a symphony of sounds overtake you, beyond the front door, there are three more doors leading to three rooms in an apartment, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a living room.
You also realize that there are eight beds in the small apartment, well four beds and four sleeping pads; five in the bedroom, and three in the living room. Eight girls are scurrying about. Something is burning on the hotplate and the living room has quickly filled with smoke despite the door to the balcony being open, it’s as if the smoke wanted to be a guest at this never ending gathering of friends as well. While one girl attends to the burning food, three gather around the small dining table, pushing computers, papers, make-up bags, and Bibles out of the way so they can put their plates down somewhere and eat. Two give up; one eats on the floor and the other on one of the beds.
You wander back out into the hallway, another girl stands banging on the bathroom door, towel in hand, toothbrush in mouth; a muffled voice calls out from behind the closed door, “Just one more second!” At the same time the door to the bedroom flings open, making an awful noise as the bottom of it scrapes against the tile floor. Yet another girl appears, her hair is disheveled and her clothes are wrinkled, her attempt at taking a nap was futile. You glance into the bedroom, among the two beds, three air mattresses, mess of sheets and sleeping bags, packs, snacks, and clothes lies the last of the eight girls, she giggles as the Friends theme song pours loudly out of her laptop, the unsuccessful napper returns and glares, the Friends watcher totally unaware, but she eventually joins the other on the bed. A smile soon makes its way across her face as well.
This apartment has housed my team for the past two months and the description above is an accurate depiction of any five minutes when we’re all here together. When seven of us walked into the apartment in August we rejoiced at the sight of a stove, washing machine, and real toilet. I’m not sure at what point we started to call it “home” and not “the apartment”, but it’s new name is much more fitting. When we returned from debrief, a new team member and squad leader in tow, we rejoiced again, happy to be home and share it with two more. Yes, it’s a tight squeeze. No, we don’t love it all the time. But I think we can all agree that we would want nothing else. These close quarters have brought us together, forced us at times, and the apartment quickly filled with a spirit of sisterly love that has continued the entire time we’ve lived here.
Nothing goes unnoticed here. This sometimes leads to hard to receive feedback about being less selfish, being a better team player, or being more vulnerable. But more so, it opens doors for us to grow and love each other. I can’t figure out the science behind this, but somehow, the smaller a living space gets, the more love it is able to hold. My prayer for all teams on the race, whether they’re just starting, about to go home, or smack dab in the middle of it, is that they have an abundance of love that continues and a really, really small living space to contain it all.
