2 Corinthians 2:14-17 (The Message Version)
In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse. This is a terrific responsibility. Is anyone competent to take it on? No— but at least we don't take God's Word, water it down, and then take it to the streets to sell it cheap. We stand in Christ's presence when we speak; God looks us in the face. We get what we say straight from God and say it as honestly as we can.
In this blog I would like to introduce you to my team Sweet Aroma and just tell you a little about the name of the Team and how we came about it.
So after several days at training camp of just being in community and living with our new squad we went through several different excercises to see how we best worked with smaller teams. They were just fun spur of the moment little excercises like trying to fit 7 people on a little carpet and then turn it over with everyone never taking there feet off the carpet! Not sure if that makes sense but we did other activites as well to see how everyone worked together. After every activity they interviewed us individually asking us questions like who do you think led the excercise? Or who do you think could have been more involved? It was obvious that they were trying to match us up with a group of people that we would be living with for possibly the next year! There were many other things that I know they were taking into account when they put the teams together and they also prayed vigorously over their decisions. It seemed at the time kind of crazy that these excercises would make up our possible companions for the next 11 months!
With that being said we must trust God that He has placed us specifically with the ones whom He has chosen.
Introducing TEAM SWEET AROMA!
From left to right: Myself ,Emily (Team Treasurer), Moriah(Team Leader), Christin, Carly,
Tess, and Jason!
What a great team I am in, I am so excited to serve like Christ with these individuals!
So after this photo( and I mean like immediately after) we all decided as a team to go do something fun. All the teams were told to go spend the afternoon together making a memory. We all decided to go to Starbucks and get some coffee because we barely had any coffee for a whole week ( that was crazy). Anyways we drove like 30 mins to find it which was really fun. We were all so super pumped and excited to know who we were going to be traveling with for at least for the first few months if not the entire year. Just driving and getting to know each other laughing and carrying on as we searched for Starbucks on our GPSs. When we got to Starbucks I was just overwhelmed with joy and genuine peace of the brother and sisters that were on my team. As we sat their at the table, all 7 of us just laughing and all smiling from ear to ear, Moriah our team leader said she had a prayer that she had written. So she read it and it was really powerful , and she had sweet aroma to some capacity and it just jumped out at me as we later were talking about our team name. So I just through it out there as being a possible team name. As I got to thinking, sweet aroma is a pretty ironic name for us because most of the time we are not going to smell very sweet physically, but the smell of Jesus coming through is always a beautiful scent.
As we all read the scripture in different translations and just meditated on what it meant, I could'nt help but notice this sweet aroma being released right there in the coffee shop. Everyone in that shop was affected by our presence but more so the presence of Jesus with us. Some were looking at us in kind of curious way, others were smiling at us and making eye contact with me while others seemed to completely ignore us. We later left the Starbucks to go and get dinner which was another story all in itself. I know we left that Starbucks making an impact, I can't see all that we did in the Spirit while just being there but I know Jesus was there with us and where He goes He makes a difference. Of all places a coffee shop is filled with the great aroma's of coffee and spices and all the great stuff they add into the drinks. It seemed like a most fitting name for our team.
Surely the people at the coffee shop didn't know who we were, or the mission that we all as a team our getting ready to embark upon, but one thing was for sure that Jesus was the sweet aroma in the Starbucks on that day.
