COMMUNITY. I never knew what the word really meant until
this trip. I have to say that this last
month has shown me the true definition community. According to Dictionary.com..
the definition of community is
a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived orperceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists
And that’s
us.. we are a group all sharing in the salvation that only comes from Jesus
Christ and our interest is letting the world know about our wonderful Savior
and what He did for us on the cross.. so that everyone can live in eternity
with Him. In America its so easy to live
in what we think is community. In America, we can go over to Bible study, hang
out for a few hours, then we go home where we can rest and relax and just cool
down and relax. Well.. living in community on the World Race is a whole different
ball game…
The first few months of this mission we
learned about each other and our differences.
Most of the time this learning process resulted in many disagreements
and frequently….even tears. We fought through it though and grew as a
team. One of the luxuries that we had at
the beginning of the race that we did not appreciate until this month is that
we used to have space to retreat to collect our thoughts. There was always an
empty room to go or an empty bed to rest in peace and quiet… Well the Lord
shook His head and said, “Nope nope, not this month. I don’t want ya’ll to get
too comfortable.” All four of us girls are in one bedroom. I am sharing a twin
sized bed with Natalie and Katherine and Faith has posted up on the floor of
the room. The two boys are also sharing a twin sized bed (aka a couch) in the
living room while our translator has his own room and bed. The place where we
are living is pretty bizzaro as well. There is glitter all over the walls, the
living room is full of clocks that never stop ticking, and there are jars of
pickles underneath all of the beds! But the place is quaint, simple and cute.
(Picture of the girl’s bedroom) (Our
cute little bathroom)
(Our Small tiny cute little kitchen where our personal EGGstrordinary chef makes our sandwiches)
We have a very small bathroom that all seven
of us share with one shower and one toilet. Let me paint a picture of how small
our bathroom is. The door opens inward and hits the toilet when it swings open;
the shower has enough room to turn around the sink pretty much is on top of the
toilet. We also have the tiniest kitchen in the entire world. If I sat in the
middle of it I could touch all four walls. I can slice some bread, fry some
eggs on the stove, and then do my dishes all while sitting down in the same
seat and not having to get up once. Each
and every day we cook all of our meals so you can imagine the chaos and the
bumping of elbows in the kitchen.
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(Watch Clock) (Vinny Wearing the Watch
Each day we
have breakfast and then we have a time of prayer and worship together. After that time together we go off to our
ministry site. We are working with a
local church and doing mainly children’s ministry. We have also had the chance
to go to several other churches and preach.
After our ministry time we meet together as a team and pray and then we
talk about any issues that we had in the day.
We call this time “feedback.” These issues can range from bad attitudes
to dealing with insecurities. One of our
favorite issues is learning to love each other even when we do not like each
other. Some of the issues can be as trivial as using all the hot water in the
shower. Every day there is a new issue
or new attitude to deal with. The best part about all of these conflicts
arising during feedback is that there is no room to retreat to or bed to rest
in. When you turn around to retreat you
bump into one of your other teammates who then ask you if you are okay, but
that just makes you even more frustrated. The key word of this month is
CONFRONTATION. That is why I have
renamed this mission’s trip from the World Race to Eleven Months of Learning
How to Die to Oneself.
(Highlight of
the month..we stopped at a bakery and sang a song for fresh bread)
One thing
that the men on my team are learning is that WOMEN ARE AN ENDLESS MYSTERY, and
we never know what we want. You just have to love us no matter what. We want
them to comfort us, but we do not want them to talk or give us advice, we want
to feel pretty, but we get mad when they tell us that we are pretty, when they
offer us a hug we do not want to be touched, but if they do not offer us a hug
we will be upset that they did not offer us a hug because we want them to
somehow know in their inner being when we need a hug! We want them to think
about us and love us enough to want to serve us, but when they try to serve us
we get mad because we think that they think that we are not capable of doing it
for ourselves, so we refuse to let them serve us and later on that night they get
to enjoy a four hour feedback on how they do not love us enough to serve us. Why women think this way, I do not know. You
can’t live with us, and you can’t live without us! So apologies men for the
confusion. Men are transparent and simple. They tell you straight up what they
want and if they are upset rather than making us guess. So thank you guys for
making it much easier to live with.
God calls us
to live in community He created us for relationships because He is a relational
God. He longs for us to be in
relationship with Him, and to just dump all our mess on His lap. He loves us unconditionally despite our mess,
but He also calls us to love each other as He loves us. The key word that comes
with that is grace. Our team has grown very close this month, but it has not
been easy. We have failed each other many times, through the failures we have
learned that we will continue to fail each other, but we have to have grace for
each other and for ourselves. That is
what the Church is though a bunch of weak failures that are in desperate need
of Savior. This Easter I just want to thank Jesus for His sacrifice and that
when I am weak He is strong.
PS. Men, when
in doubt buy chocolate…
