One thing I have never talked about that happens on the Race daily is team times. Team times are scheduled times set out to have intentional time with our teams nightly. I’d love to share what that looks like for everyone because it’s one of the biggest points of growth for me and has challenged me to be better in my walk with Christ.
Monday is Journey Markers. Journey markers is where we go through the book of Luke and relate that to our lives. We have questions provided by AIM and this weeks included questions like “in what ways do you struggle with giving grace to yourself and others?”. Really thought provoking, and makes you have to reflect on yourself and behaviors.
Tuesday is Blogging. We wright our blogs together and bounce ideas off one another.
Wednesday is Worship. That looks different every week for us. Sometimes it’s listening to an ipod over a speaker, guitar/singing worship, other times it’s listening prayer, art worship or even dance parties. One night we even rapped psalms. It was epic.
Thursday is Feedback. Feedback started out interesting to say the least. It’s where we see things in our teammates that are not of the Lord, for example, complaining. When we see these things the first thing you always should do is go to the Lord about it first and make sure the words you speak to said person are kind and from the Lord. Then you would go to that person (or wait till team time) and tell them that you see whatever it is in them and know that it’s not of the Lord and not who they desire to be as a person, so you call them higher in that. But one of the biggest rules in feedback is that you can’t respond with anything but “ok” and “thank you” until you got to the Lord with the issue and hash it out with Him.
Friday is free for all. Sometimes that looks like going out to breakfast, lunch or dinner together. Other times it’s setting up our projector, throwing some popcorn in the microwave and having a movie night. One night we all just cuddled together and took the 16 personality tests and the love language quiz. Last week we played board games like Dix-It and Settlers of Catan, (I know how to play Catan now and I’m very excited to come home and play with everyone!!!).
Saturday is Debrief the Week.Sometimes we do our ministry and out of ministry highs and lows. Other times we get a little deeper and seek to see where we saw Jesus throughout the week.
Feedback is the one I want to talk about right now though. Our team was in a very stagnant place the past few weeks and I had the idea of doing a “Super Feedback” which is where every person has to give each person on the team constructive and positive feedback. Scary but good. Two of my teammates gave me positive feedback on how I was doing at ministry and told me that it seems like I’m overflowing in compassion and joy. But when we come home to the house, they’ve noticed that I kinda just check out and turn off that ministry mindest I’m supposed to have daily. And that’s something I had been noticing about myself and trying to fix as well.
So, I realized that in order to maintain that source of energy I’d have to continually fill up my cup as I go through out my day. That means taking a few minutes at lunch and right when we get home from ministry to be with the Lord and refresh my mind. It’s easy to get home, grab some food and not want to be intentional with everyone else in the house. But that’s where love, joy and trust comes into play when building relationships with your friends/team.
On another note,
Thanks for keeping up with me and reading my blogs!! It’s so encouraging to have amazing people from back home always supporting me.
On A VERY POSITIVE NOTE,
I AM ONLY $113 AWAY FROM BEING FULLY FUNDED!!!! AHHHHHH!!! THANKS GOD!!! Fun fact about my fundraising; Our deadline was very graciously extended from our first deadline of December 27th to February 7th! Just one more day to get $113 in!!!! WE CAN DO IT!!
With lots of love.. all the way from Africa
Kaylin
