April, my former teammate, said that going on the World Race and living with people is like an arranged marriage. I couldn’t agree more! You have to fall in love with the people after you are “married� to them.
We are put together with people we know nothing about. Then we are to sleep, eat, live, do ministry, share…basically do everything together.
We are called to love them.
Almost every month I have had to “marry� a new group of people.
It is exhausting, hard, annoying, wonderful, incredible and many more mixed emotions that words cannot fully describe.
If you buy any food, plan on only having a few bites of it because everyone is going to want to try. You will wash their dirty clothes by hand. Nothing you own is really yours, it is every ones (yes, even including underwear!)
You will wipe their tears after knowing them only a few days. You will make meals out of only 3 ingredients for them. You will sleep in the same room as boys; you will spill your guts to them when it would normally take months or even years to normally share those type of things. You get to see their selfishness, quirks and annoying habits in less than a week. They will want back massages even though you have been pouring out all day in ministry. They will stay up hooting and hollering when you are trying to sleep. And vise versa for me too.
But you also get to experience God in ways you have never known. You get to see His grace, love, and patience. You will receive His love for them when they deserve the opposite (same for me!) You will get to be blessed by their gifts and talents. You will get to hear their testimonies and how God has gazillions of ways of revealing Himself to people and showing His power. You will have a family that will fight for you, that will give you the last apple, that will stay up late at night praying for you, that will listen to God on your behalf, that will surprise you with little gifts, that will give you their only face wash they have left. They will give you feedback, positive and constructive. They see you as God sees you — strengths and blind spots alike.
Yet they don’t dwell on your imperfections, they call you into the person who you are created to be. They see your potential and encourage you in that. They don’t force anything on you. They don’t expect you to change overnight. They love you for the stage that you are at. They don’t try to change you but pray because they know that is God’s job.
Now this is truly a once and a life time opportunity.
