The Gift of Choice….

The Gift of Choice….

Last week’s camp was AWESOME!! We Got to meet some really great kids as well as young adult counselors!  Some of them made the choice to follow Christ.  What and awesome Choice!  I remember making that choice for myself, I was 9 yrs. old living in Lubbock, TX.  Wow, what an impact that one choice would have on the rest of my life!  That one choice would affect, every choice I made from then on.  Ultimately that choice is what brought me here.  Never underestimate how much influence those choices you make as a young child will have in your life.  As Jesus says in Matt. 18:3-4, And he said: “I tell you the truth unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  Child like faith is what Jesus is always looking for.  Not adults analyzing the heck out of his words.  Yes he wants us to use our minds, thats what he gave them to us for, but our hearts work in conjunction with that….that’s where the “choice” comes in…

We choose to balance HEART and MIND and serve him….

This week at El Rancho our team and 4 other teams, 2 from “M squad” and 2 from “N squad” are getting ready for a conference called New Wine.  It’s a Yearly conference that happens here.  It draws about 800 Christians from all over New Zealand.  They have seminars and music.  It’s a really great spiritual retreat and source of enrichment for Christians in New Zealand.  Our team is working with 2 other teams on behalf of El Rancho to host the event.  Two other teams from the “N squad” are working with the people from New Wine on their side to help put the event on.  It’s really great to see God using us to work together for His purpose.   

The great thing about being combined with other teams is that even tho my team “three:seventeen” is still accountable to each other and we are a unit among the teams we are doing other things that use us in different capacities so we get to work with other teammates.  At the beginning of the job assignments they asked for 5 volunteers.  We didn’t know what the assignment was, but 5 of us stepped up.  Well we are the official “2 Crew”….. ok, so we call ourselves the “Poo Crew” but I don’t think Sam, the guy in charge of us, thought that sounded so good, so he changed it.  But basically, we are the bathroom, showers, restroom refill and clean-up crew.  Sam is such a sweet, great guy!  Never have you met a harder working person.  He does all of it for the glory of God.   He is the definite go to, run around with his head cut off, jack of all trades kinda guy.

 

We have a great team working together, there are 5 of us.  Lauren, Lana, Megan, Danny and Me.  We all have the same philosophy, get in there, get the job done and then enjoy your time off til your work begins again.  Work hard, play hard!  So efficiency is definitely a key to accomplishing our goal.  The thing I like about our team is that we all have a high standard of quality of work.  As I was scrubbing down a shower, I was really thinking about the way the people at El Rancho have really blessed our team with the accommodations that they have provided us with and just the hospitality and graciousness they have extended us.  I really hoped that we all felt that priviledge.  But for myself I knew that I had a “choice”.  I had a choice to extend the extra effort and more elbow grease to go above and beyond scrubbing the shower to get it cleaner in a way I knew I could, or I could just clean and “sanitize” it so that it could be used by the next person.  I chose to get the stuff I needed to get the job done the way I knew I could.  

It just reminded me that in all things we have a choice, because of Jesus.  God gave his son so that I continually have that choice.  The choice to settle for the “status quo” or to push myself to a standard higher that would be one worthy of the effort I actually put into it, and it was.  I stood back, after alot of sweat, and thankfully no tears and was very proud of a job well done!

I’m excited about the conference and the way we will get to work in people’s lives by blessing them in ways unseen, and choosing to be of service…..